There’s a new (to me) meme out there hosted by MastersPleasingBitch called Five Things. In it she presents a topic and usually five questions that you address in your blog or Twitter in – you guessed it – five sentences, five bullet points, five paragraphs, five photos…whatever floats your boat. This week’s topic is Five Things about Photography and it fits perfectly with this month’s February PhotoFest photography theme! So, hopefully you will humor me for a bit and read through my long-winded response before you get to the image I chose for today’s panty pic.
Five Things About Photography
- Photos gave me self-confidence. I didn’t enjoy pics being taken of me (much) prior to my relationship with W. But he opened my eyes to the joy of photography – both in being photographed and in taking them myself. He made me see myself as beautiful, sensual and sexual in a way that I never had before. I talked about that in one of my earliest blog posts, “The Story of Pictures.”
- Photos are my memory. After he passed, it took me awhile to be able to look at any of the hundreds of photos that he had taken of us. They brought up too many memories and broke my heart all over again. Now, finally, I am (mostly) able to look through my pictures on Fet and on my computer and see the joy we shared. I can remember and relive some of those moments and feel happiness that we had that time together, even if it was cut short too soon. See, I have a horrible memory. Always have. But being able to see pictures of what we did stirs my lazy memory up and brings those moments back to me. Even though it is bittersweet at times, I am so very grateful to have them. I have a wall of photos – of him, of V, Adam, my Canadian, my family and friends – and though some of them make my heart ache, and even if some of those relationships are over, I wouldn’t take even one of them down. I frequently walk by that wall and gaze at those pictures, letting them remind me of the love and joy I have been blessed with in my life.
Okay, an aside: I was looking for a post that related to the next point I am making in this bullet-pointy post, and I accidentally ran across this one: Twisted Tryst Pics & Write-Up. Wow. The write-up is nice. The words evoke a sense of time and place and heat and yumminess. But it’s the images that hit me viscerally. And I would not have remembered so many of the particulars of that time – of his hands and voice and growl and pinches and demands and how utterly owned I was by him – if I didn’t have the images to go along with my words. They may not affect anyone else that way – but that’s okay. They’re my memories. - Sharing my pictures gives me joy. Once upon a time there was a meme called Half-Naked Thursday. It no longer exists, but it was the first place I ever shared pictures of myself. I was terrified! Terrified I wasn’t beautiful enough, interesting enough, photogenic enough. Maybe nobody would like me. But people did. They commented positively. And as my self-confidence grew, I began to look for opportunities to take pictures just so that I could share them, here in my blog, in the different memes, and in my vanilla life too. And now it is such an integral part of my life, both kink and vanilla. So much so that when my daughter and I take our next vacation together, I have made a reservation for a photography/snowshoeing tour in Vancouver. I can’t wait to learn about how to take better photos!
- Some images make me hot. Okay, as a writer/reader, I have always thought of myself as, well, a WordGirl. Not a visual stimuli person. An erotica or porn reader, not a voyeur. Again, I have to give credit to W – his instance on memorializing everything in pictures – and in very obviously getting off on them – eventually began to seep into my psyche. Eventually, I began to become aroused by images. Photographs of our own scenes and of others’. Now I run across an image in my Twitter feed and I feel an actual, physical erotic pull, and I have to let myself drift down into it, remember it for later, when I’ll be touching myself or someone else, and I can pull it back into my mind, an electric charge.
- And last but not least, a favorite image. I love this picture, even if it was just taken the other day specifically for this month of photos. But seriously, how much fun is this??
And that, dear reader, is five things I know about photography.
Thank you so much for joining in with 5 Things. So many of the things you wrote resonated with me and I’m so happy that you are able to revisit your photos with and by W again. I’m like you and have a terrible memory, photos can evoke such amazing memories. xx