Photo Challenge

Brandon Figliolino

January 13, 2019

Photo Challenge

Social media fads are frequent, and unpredictable. For two weeks, I saw photos of people blindfolding themselves to do menial tasks, like folding laundry or washing the dog. You can Google search #BirdBoxChallenge to learn more, and to read a disclaimer from Netflix on why driving a car blindfolded is a terrible idea. Now those photos have dissipated, dropped to the bottom of Facebook Timelines, and disappeared from Newsfeeds and Stories. They're going the way of the #TideChallenge and #DuckFaceSelfies.  

The new fad involves side-by-side photos: one is an individual’s first Facebook profile picture, and the second their latest. I’ll call it the #AgingChallenge, because even a millennial with a computer can have a hard time finding the correct hashtag to use sometimes.

Posting before and after photos looked fun, so being an attention-seeker, I hopped on that bandwagon with these two photos.

The photo on the left was one of my first Facebook profile pictures, shot in 2009 on my very fancy Dell XPS M1550 Product(RED) laptop. Plugged into my ears were headphones, most likely pumping the tunes of ABBA. To prove that I was an amazing and talented chef, I wore my best chef whites; I was a culinary aid at a retirement home and envisioned being a reality chef on television. My hair was spiked in a faux-hawk, which was very badass of me. Because I didn’t know how to use Adobe Photoshop, acne was prominent across my face. I was nineteen.

The photo on the right was the last photo I snapped in 2018. It has three obvious differences. For one, I have no more hair; after years of self-pity and worry I finally scraped what hair remained on my head with a Gillette Fusion Proglide razor. My acne is also gone, too, and while I know how to use Photoshop now, I didn’t need it to gussy-up the photo. Fun fact: the medication that wiped out my acne also erased my full head of hair. #IRONY!

The third difference is the quality of the photo taken from my Samsung Galaxy S9, which is superior to the 3MP camera on the laptop. Thank goodness technology improves over time.

There’s another difference, but it’s difficult to see, so I’ll point it out. Because my torso is largely cut-off in both photos, and because I’m wearing clothes, you can’t really tell that I’m less skinny in 2018 than in 2019. In fact, the last time someone legitimately told me I needed to go eat another sandwich because I'm too thin was in 2016! I’ll save a shirtless selfie for a #TransformationTuesday post, so stay tuned.

In the photo on the right, I'm twenty-eight.

I enjoyed looking at how much I’ve grown in nine years, but these photos only show physical changes. From them you can’t tell I earned two degrees, neither of which involved culinary arts. You can’t tell I bought a house, lost family, friends, and cats to illness and death, or traveled to amazing places like New York City and Seattle. It's impossible to tell that I still listen to ABBA, and that I continue to read, write, and tell lame jokes. You can’t see my internalized struggles, nor the growth in my awareness of injustice in the world around me. You can’t tell the young chef became a public service professional who seeks public office, either.

When I look at those two photos, I see an adolescent turned into an adult, not just in body, but spirit and mind, too. That's only because I’ve lived those experiences, and let them mold me into who I have become. There is something constant in the photos, though: my smile. In my smile I see someone who loves life and is determined to make something of his future. That's unchanged. ;-)

Yes, these photo challenges are silly, and being fully transparent, I did it in part to garner attention. But these photos are a good reminder that as time passes, people grow and change. It’s fun to look at our physical differences, but reflecting on our internal changes—those that aren’t easily gleaned from two photos—can be worthwhile and important, too.

BONUS CONTENT:
Here's a photo of me doing the #BirdBoxChallenge with Emma Swan. She's immune to the Creatures' persuasions, and would claw my face if I tried to put something over her head, so she doesn't need or have a blindfold.