The curse of not being able to take a good photo

As soon as she snapped the picture, I knew it wasn’t good.

We were at my wife’s graduation from George Mason, and a friend of ours had just used my “fancy” camera to take a family photo of Sarah, her parents and myself.

“Can we take another?” I pleaded with Sarah.

I knew it was bad.

No, she said. As I peered into the little LCD screen, the evidence was right there — worst picture ever.

Later that night, I tried to delete the picture, but Sarah wouldn’t let me — she looked good. Who cares if I took another bad picture?

“Please, please don’t put it on Facebook,” I begged, reiterating for the hundredth time that I hate the social networking site.

Again, I was vetoed.

The next day I was casually checking my e-mail when I noticed an enormously large volume of mail from my friends.

My friends don’t e-mail unless someone has died, fantasy football is in full swing or they’re going to make fun of me.

“Dude!” my friend Korn wrote. “Did you just soil yourself in that picture?”

My head hit the table in our computer room so loud Sarah thought someone was breaking in.

“It looks like you’re making kissy faces at the camera,” my friend Chris chimed in.

And those are the only two fit for print in a family publication. No matter what I did, no matter how hard I pleaded, Sarah wouldn’t take it off Facebook. It’s still there — please don’t look at it.

I shouldn’t be shocked, I’ve never taken great photographs. When I was younger, I was a camera hog. I’d mug at every chance, and the results were usually cute.

There was the picture of me when I was 2 on my little fake porta-john reading a book. There was the picture of me wearing a horrid winter hat, which I think was my Mom’s, while riding my big-wheel. My mom still cries at how cute the picture of me lying on my older brother’s chest is.

Somewhere, I lost the cute. Right around elementary school I started taking horrible photographs. Most people exit the ugly duckling stage when they graduate high school. Not me. In my senior picture I look like the ungainly love child of Ichabod Crane and Steve Urkel.

In college, the pictures didn’t get any better. I usually looked like a zombie in most photos, my eyes half open, my pale skin accented by the flash of the camera and a weird, toothy grin that just screams, “I’m a hillbilly.”

My inability to take a decent photo at least led me to a love of photography, almost by necessity. If I can’t give a good picture, at least I can try to take one — which works out well with my wife since she’s so photogenic.

Oh, look at that. I just got another e-mail about the picture posted on Facebook!

“Are you doing the ‘Blue Steel’ pose from ‘Zoolander’?” my friend Keith asks.

No. No, I am not.

Excuse me. I have a picture I have to Photoshop.