Mugshot.


Today, I popped by my friend Sarah’s studio to exchange Christmas cards. While I was there, she made me a cup of tea in a Take That mug.

This gave me ample opportunity to pull my ‘holding a Take That mug’-face.

(Twat.)

I never realised I had a ‘holding a Take That mug’-face until I posed for the picture - when, all too soon, it became apparent. All it took was a couple of seconds of being looked at through a viewfinder for my natural, relaxed expression to be replaced with a gurny, pointy, cuppy-holdy one.

This is often the case when someone gets out a camera (except for the cup-holding bit). This leads to me to worry that in years to come, all that will be left of me will be a string of face-pulling photographs.

It reminds me of the time I posed for a caricaturist as a kid. For some, inexplicable reason, I decided to pull a face throughout the sitting that I’d never done before or since.

He picked up that I was doing this and told me to relax. I said I would, then continued with my unnatural expression.

It was like I'd misunderstood which one of us was supposed to be doing the caricaturing - and was not content with letting him send up my facial features without exaggerating them a little bit myself. Whatever the reason, the resulting cartoon looked nothing like me (unless I pulled my special one-off face).

So, should you want to take a picture, it’s best to take me by surprise. Don’t ask me to pose for it: unless you want to see me impersonate a Spitting Image puppet of myself.

(Don't let it be said that I ever over-think.)

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