The Photo Booth and Carnival Mirrors..

I've been playing with the features on my new Mac Air notebook. It really is quite impressive the capabilities of this tiny and very light computer. One of the features I like most is the Photo Booth which is an application you use to take pictures of yourself through the computer. To add to the interest Apple has provided a menu of special effects to choose from to enhance the experience. You can take a normal picture, you can give yourself a fuller figure, you can twist your face or even show off a split personality!  It's as easy as selecting an effect from the menu, smiling for the camera and clicking.... the modern day version of the Carnival Mirrors.

This past Saturday night as part of the evening, AFCEA was providing free pictures to anyone who wanted to pose for the photographer. We had our picture taken the previous year and gained huge points with my Mother-in-Law by giving her the photo. So when the opportunity presented itself again this year, we made that our first stop of the evening. This year however, the cameraman apparently had other plans, and the results of our photo shoot were less than satisfactory. Not only did the picture turn out blurry, but it also seemed to be taken from a "wide angle lens". I looked puffy everywhere and Chuck looked a little like Santa in a tux without the beard. Perhaps this photographer was using the Photo Booth effect "The Bulge"!

I caught myself, for just a second asking myself the question, "Is that what I look like? Perhaps I should not have included Skinny Girl in my Blog Title" , and then I stopped myself. I felt really good about myself, and it wasn't about size I was or wasn't.  I didn't need a picture to tell me that my reflection looked fine. I knew that my real reflection was the positive energy I was projecting from the changes I had been making these past few weeks. 

So I took our very bad picture and tossed it in the garbage. No bonus points with the Mother in Law this year, but extra points for recognizing it's not a picture that defines my image, it's me.