When the camera shy feel left out

[Twik]

I suddenly had a mental image of next year's photo book...candid shots of everyone with the baby, and then one retouched, 15-year old "glamorshot" photo of SM all by herself.

With the baby photo-shopped into it.

Pure brilliance.

[JeanFromBNA]

Personally I have no patience for the camera shy (despite being terribly un photogenic myself!) and frequently find camera shy behavior to actually and ironically be attention seeking.  I will always respect their wishes, but I'm not going to go out of my way to pander to them.

This is the way I feel about it.  In this situation, I don't really understand why the SM both 1) does not want her photo taken but 2) is upset that her photo is not in a book to be shown to others.  I think both are attention seeking behavior. And again, this is a BABY book.  Not a SM book.

Me three. 

Anybody else getting an ad for a photo-retouching service?

[Yvaine]

I suddenly had a mental image of next year's photo book...candid shots of everyone with the baby, and then one retouched, 15-year old "glamorshot" photo of SM all by herself.

With the baby photo-shopped into it.

Riding a T-Rex.

[flowersintheattic]

The actions of everyone in the letter make me wonder how forceful and demanding SM is about deleting the photos. I'm picturing a situation where a flash goes off and she's immediately asking to review, then spends a minute looking at it and demands that it be deleted without any regard to anyone else. I have a friend like that, and it gets exhausting.

If that's the case, I don't blame the LW and her husband for not wanting to ask for a picture or give the SM the opportunity to take photos. It's their child - if they don't have any pictures of SM with the baby, it's entirely possible there actually aren't any. And allowing her to take one to submit would likely turn into a hours-long process with her reviewing every. Single. Shot. Taken.

I agree that it probably would have been nicer for the LW to inform SM that they didn't have any pics of her for the book, and find out if she wanted to give them one, but I understand why they didn't.

[Thipu1]

I actually kind of agree with Amy on this one.  At least, I agree that having some compassion for the stepmother's feelings is warranted.  I don't think she's a special snowflake for feeling like she does.  I think anyone would feel left out, regardless of how or why it happened.  I like Amy's idea of talking about it and promising to make sure to get shots of her and the baby from now on so she can be included in the next photo book.

But she excluded herself. I can understand her feeling left out, but she did it to herself and doesn't have a leg to stand on.

I agree with this.  If the Stepmother didn't want to be photographed, she didn't want to be photographed.  It was her decision.

Feeling left out when you opted out of the opportunity doesn't quite work for me. 

If the LW had told SM that the photos were going into an album to be distributed to the family, she might have taken a different view. 

[Bluenomi]

If there aren't any photos of SM to put in the album, she doesn't have any right to get offended. Especially if she made the parents delete any they had. I also get the impression if they did put any photos of her in, they'd be in trouble for picking 'embarassing' ones.

I had to make a photo album for DD's daycare recently. When looking for photos I realised I don't have any of DD with FIL. He doesn't like being in photos, he always takes them so I've got the rest of the family in the album but none of him with DD. He's never going to know but if he found out and was offended I'd point out it's hard to put a photo in when it doesn't exsist. He lives interstate so I can't just duck over and get one either

[Deetee]

As various people have said, it is important that this was gift given to people, as opposed to a photo album for the parents. I already mentioned how I did the same thing and, even though I do not consider myself a pandery person at all, I made utterly sure that there was pictures of the recipients in each seperate album.

There were two important reasons
1) This was a gift for them, so I tried to include people they cared about in the album as well as themselves.
2) It is important to me that each of my daughter's grandparents feels included in her life. She cannot have too many people love her. (She has eight grandparents)

One more story, I find my dad's wife a bit difficult for several reasons. We are not close. But she loves our daughter and has a very nice relationship with her (independent of me or my dad). It has been nice to watch that relationship grow and I am very happy with my intitial decision to welcome all grandparents (step or blood) and treat them as equally as possible.

[blarg314]

The family wasn't taking the photos with the idea of doing an album.  They took tons of photos, and then decided to make an album, and there weren't any photos of SM to put in it. They could have called her up and scheduled a professional photo shoot when they were doing the album, but that would still be one posed photo taken after all the other photos in the album. They still wouldn't be able to include her a chronicle of the baby's first nine months because those photos didn't exist.

If you don't like having your picture taken, and insist on having photos deleted, then a logical consequence of this will be a lack of photos including you.

In the future, I'd send photo albums to the other grandparents and great grandparents only.

My experience is that grandparents can absolutely love albums like this, and that they make great gifts. If grandparent1 lives nearby and grandparent2 doesn't, it would be insensitive to give them an album full of photos of baby with grandparent1 only, because that rubs in the fact that one set of grandparents gets a lot more time with the baby than the others. But if someone insists on photos of them being deleted, there's not much you can do.

[LeveeWoman]

The family wasn't taking the photos with the idea of doing an album.  They took tons of photos, and then decided to make an album, and there weren't any photos of SM to put in it. They could have called her up and scheduled a professional photo shoot when they were doing the album, but that would still be one posed photo taken after all the other photos in the album. They still wouldn't be able to include her a chronicle of the baby's first nine months because those photos didn't exist.

If you don't like having your picture taken, and insist on having photos deleted, then a logical consequence of this will be a lack of photos including you.

In the future, I'd send photo albums to the other grandparents and great grandparents only.

My experience is that grandparents can absolutely love albums like this, and that they make great gifts. If grandparent1 lives nearby and grandparent2 doesn't, it would be insensitive to give them an album full of photos of baby with grandparent1 only, because that rubs in the fact that one set of grandparents gets a lot more time with the baby than the others. But if someone insists on photos of them being deleted, there's not much you can do.

What about the grandfather who's married to the step-mother? If there are photographs of him and the baby, shouldn't he get an album? From the letter, I assume there are photographs of him or the letter writer probably would've mentioned it.

[TylerBelle]

In attending gatherings with school activities, I've taken my camera to get some shots to remember the occasion. There would be someone there who'd avoid the camera with, "Oh no! There she is with a camera again, don't take my picture!" Then when I'd bring the developed pictures around, they'd be all, "Why aren't there very many of me?"

While that attitude can be frustrating, as with the story, though here I'd think it would have been best while getting the pictures together for the album and plan on giving/showing it around and there was a chance the stepmother was to see the album, to have taken the high road and stop and ask her to let's get a picture. If she refused, then it'd been on her.

[Ceallach]

I think the key point here is that the SM is essentially asking for special treatment.    The couple are in no way required to oblige her snowflakiness.

Why should the couple have to go to the effort of consulting her to arrange a special photo shoot to go into the album?   If I were a relative, would I prefer to have a special photo taken and to approve it as a good shot of me to be used in the fancy album?  Yes, I would.  I'm not camera shy (I looove photos) but I do like to have good photos if possible.  I'd love it if the one in the book was a good shot.  So I'd probably be a little irritated if the person who makes a fuss gets to arrange a photo specially, while the rest of us just have any old photo selected.  I'd still be happy to be included, but it would seem they were being rewarded for their fussiness.    And of course it's unreasonable to expect the couple to go out of their way to get "special" approved photos of everybody to use.  That would turn a lovely, heartwarming idea into a massive undertaking.   It's a shame that SM's fussy camera shy behaviour has resulted in her exclusion, but as it clearly wasn't intentional on the part of the couple I don't think she has any right to complain.  Feel hurt, yes, but complain no.

[blarg314]

What about the grandfather who's married to the step-mother? If there are photographs of him and the baby, shouldn't he get an album? From the letter, I assume there are photographs of him or the letter writer probably would've mentioned it.

The letter says that the grandfather was also angry about the photo album, on his wife's behalf.  If the photo album upsets him that much, he doesn't need to get one. They could send copies of individual photos to them, but not the formatted album.

[TurtleDove]

Not to veer too far off topic, but in my experience, normal people grasp that some photos don't show them in their best light.  Anyone who is facebook friends with me can verify this! The thing that is so odd to me is that some people both only want fabulous shots of themselves and also don't allow very many shots of themselves. If you want to look good in photos, take more of them. And if the issue is that you don't like how you look...that isn't about the photo.

[Alias]

My mother tried this one recently.  We have a bunch of photos up in our kitchen of kids with family.  My mother stood in front of them, pointed out my father, my brother, my aunt etc in the photos and asked 'where am I? Why isn't there one of me?'  I bluntly told her she doesn't like having her photo taken, and complains when we do, so where was I going to get a photo?  The next time I took out my camera for some photos, she didn't complain!

[Winterlight]

The actions of everyone in the letter make me wonder how forceful and demanding SM is about deleting the photos. I'm picturing a situation where a flash goes off and she's immediately asking to review, then spends a minute looking at it and demands that it be deleted without any regard to anyone else. I have a friend like that, and it gets exhausting.

If that's the case, I don't blame the LW and her husband for not wanting to ask for a picture or give the SM the opportunity to take photos. It's their child - if they don't have any pictures of SM with the baby, it's entirely possible there actually aren't any. And allowing her to take one to submit would likely turn into a hours-long process with her reviewing every. Single. Shot. Taken.

I agree that it probably would have been nicer for the LW to inform SM that they didn't have any pics of her for the book, and find out if she wanted to give them one, but I understand why they didn't.

That's how I was reading it too- that she insists on looking and reviewing each and every photo and rejecting them based on flaws only she sees.