PHOTOGENIC

PHOTOGENIC

I'm not sure why but it is a fact that some people are photogenic and others are not. The camara really does love some people...not me, for sure. It may be a learned trait but I don't think so. If it is, I'm a slow learner.

A number of years ago, my wife and I were in Mexico on a business/pleasure trip. We stayed in the city of Puerto Vallarta. During our stay, we took a cruise on a small yacht from which you could snorkel if you wanted. The waters where we were going to get in had an influx of millions jelly fish when we got there and no one was allowed to snorkel. We sailed on to a really small isolated fishing village that had no dock for our boat. They sent out a small row boat to transport us to shore. There was only one restaurant in the village. We had lunch and drinks.

Naturally, there were people there selling their wares; leather goods, carved wood, woven area rugs or blankets, decorated and mounted stones. The children were entrepreneurs themselves. They each had large iguana that they had caught and put on a leash. They offered the iguana for picture taking. One dollar a picture. You could hold the iguana if you were daring. You could hold its leash if you were not. And, if you were really squeamish, the kids would stand in the picture with you and hold the iguana. While watching others pay to have their picture taken with an iguana, I wondered if they thought it made them more photogenic. Is the trick to being photogenic to have your picture made with someone or something that is uglier than you? I think I'm still out of luck.