Fear the Family Portrait

I know nothing about nothing, but I do know no good can come out of family portraits. In fact, if you watch the evening news, or Dateline, or A&E real life mysteries then seemingly only bad things, really bad things come from family portraits.
Whenever someone is missing or slain the money shot is always the family portrait. If one family member goes crazy and kills the rest of the members then out comes the family portrait. If a child stalks a celebrity....If a woman leaves her life to join a cult....If a man becomes a woman then becomes a cop killer the photo shown on the television is always the family portrait. As sure as the neighbor is surprised at the bad news, the family portrait is always first to hit the airwaves.
And it’s not just any family portrait. I'm talking the department store shot. Sears, J.C.Penney's, etc. Complete with the lasered background as the entire family stands awkwardly staring just left of the lens like a semblance of lazy skyscrapers. Nothing good can come from this. If you see one of these on the news it's usually followed by a story so grotesque that the news team skips two of the five weather segments just to bring you the complete story.
Perhaps the family portrait is not to blame for these horrific events. Perhaps it's not as cause-and-effect as it seems. But I believe in God... just in case. And I don't throw out receipts ... just in case. And I never walk under ladders…just in case. So just in case, I am going nowhere near another family portrait....again.
My family took a family portrait when I was in sixth grade at my elementary school. St. Peter's Church organized a professional photography studio to set up shop in the lower church to put on film the majority of the parish families. In his proudest sports jacket, my father dragged his perm'd wife, his primped daughters and his acne’s sons to pose as a happy family. With reluctance, the seven of us drove in three separate cars, waited in five separated corners of the lower church then came together as a happy family when it was our turn. When we finally got the pictures weeks later, the portrait was already dated. Shit, it was dated the moment the flash died out; the clothes, the smiles, the hairstyles, the glimmering eyes. It was a moment that should have disappeared immediately. Not displayed for over a decade to every visitor of the house.
My parents proudly hung this family portrait behind the sofa in the living room. It haunted me everyday as a kid. In the picture we posed as a happy collective family unit. We stood by each other as one. We rubbed elbows like loved ones. In that moment our souls intertwined like a bouquet of flowers, tangled like sinews bringing bone to muscle. In real life, for the most part, we walked our separate lives. I know now that we were as happy and unhappy as any suburban, middle class family in the neighborhood. Though, as a child I didn’t know that. I thought everyone else’s family was, in fact, as happy as their family portraits and mine was just portraying nirvana. I looked at our family portrait and felt like a fake, a real phony.
This wasn’t true of course. We were actually a happy family relatively speaking of course...but never quite as happy as the family in that picture. And I knew this to the core.
And that’s why the news teams always use the family portraits to paint their news picture. It’s a portrayal of happiness to an otherwise apathetic, sometimes unhappy and often gory story. My childhood following that photo was not unhappy. Not one of us has slain the other, and we managed to get by without landing on the news. That being said one of us in that picture is no longer with us.
Ok, so it's a weird theory. But a man who lives without theories is a man who has given up on life….At least, that’s what I keep telling myself.
My wife knows my family portrait theory and often teases me that she scheduled us a session at JC Penney’s. “We have a coupon,” she says. But it’s not happening. I won’t do it. I don’t keep large, sharp knives in the house or hand guns or family portraits all for the same reason; someone could get seriously hurt.
Congratulations to all of you who have appeared in a family portraits and have come out unscathed. Congrats again, to those of you who go back for more. Your stomachs and constitutions must be stronger than mine.
There are so many other opportunities of family brilliance. While a staged portrait has its value at times, it ranks too low on the list of moments of familiar happiness. Scheduled appointments, mall queues and dealing with six-dollar-an-hour unhappy high school receptionists does not a happy family make.
Here’s a money making idea...Professional photographers should comb the beaches, boardwalks and tourist traps of the world for vacationing families. The photographer should set up one hundred yards away snapping candid pics of the entire family truly experiencing utopia. Mom, Dad and toddler testing the trickling ocean for the first time. Family buries father figure in sand up to his gaping smile. Family of five stands together in awe at the world’s architecture. These are exactly kind of timeless family portraits that I want on my wall. I would pay handsomely for anyone that can capture me at my most sincere. Call it Authentic Happiness Photography Inc. Photographers everywhere, you can have my idea. All I want in return is a free 8x11 glossy of my choice.