What lies beneath the gloss
The photograph, like the human eye, is also generally thought of as a window to the human soul. I thought of this as I sorted and skimmed through old photos yesterday (being a really quiet Labor Day), and interrupting myself ever so often to examine the portraits of those whom, in my family have passed on and those now living. I stopped to scrutinize the ones I found interesting, to see if the theory held up, to see if somehow, I could look beyond the portraits--beyond the glossy surface of the photos, to make out what I could of the souls therein.
But to define the soul much less to perceive it is not an easy thing to do. A rather interesting one is the close-up of my father, a dark young man confined within a soldier's uniform (a Vietnam Veteran) with various war gems appended to him; a soldier's hat, buttons, badges and other adornments. He appears nipped and tucked into a stiff package. His eyes appear businesslike, serious, steady, and seem to contradict the wide grin and the appearance of joviality that the camera seemed to want to capture. In one hand he holds a photo of my mother. Her beauty and youthfulness are breathtaking. Like his, her eyes also appear steady though intent, thoughtful and soft. She does not smile but her lips are slightly parted.(Wedding photos of her and my stepfather whom she married in later years reveal the same look about her).
I asked her about it once when I was younger--why she hadn't smiled in her wedding photos and she remarked something to the effect of being thoughtful throughout the whole proceeding and celebration; she wondered if she was giving up her freedom to marriage too soon and too young at the age of twenty-one. She somehow had the feeling during the wedding that she was making a mistake. I remember all kind of thoughts running through my mind at her revelation but never mouthed a word of them to her partly because it was sad, partly because I didn't fully understand. Five children (well four now, as my sister died five days after birth--she would have been in her mid-twenties today) and a bruised and battered life later, my mother finally found the courage to abandon the marriage...
As to the photo, I tried to discern what I could of the souls of my parents in the photo. I doubt that I found anything of their souls and if the camera had indeed captured their souls, it is well preserved in the photo along with the essence of "life" and "time." What I did consciously discern though, was an undercurrent of emotions, memories, dreams, love, hope and suffering ( I've always thought my mom suffered the most). Perhaps a camera does not capture souls. Perhaps as Viramontes says, it steals them.
To explain further: In "Snapshots" Viramontes tells the story of an older woman who becomes haunted by loneliness and acquires a habit she describes as being more deadly than alcohol addiction; the habit of nostalgia. She begins flipping through family photos to pass the rest of her time away while she is alive.
"Snapshots are ghosts" the narrator says. The narrator recalls the first time her picture was ever taken. Her grandfather who had just learned how to operate a camera, took pictures of her which made her grandmother extremely upset. "She kept pulling me out of the picture, yelling to my grandfather that he should know better, that snapshots steal the souls of the people and that she would not allow my soul to be taken." The narrator states that he took the picture anyway but it never came out. "My grandfather, not knowing better, thought that all he had to do to develop the film was unroll it and expose it to the sun. After we waited an hour we realized it didn't work. My grandmother was very upset and cut a piece of my hair, probably to save me from a bad omen" (Helena Maria Viramontes| Snapshots|1983)
