THE BOYS ON THE BEACH

By MICHAEL PERKINS

ONCE THEY ENTER THEIR TEEN YEARS, many young folk enter a very exclusive photographic club, whose rules dictate that, while they will suddenly become withdrawn or sullen if an adult tries to snap their picture, there is no limit to their enthusiasm for posing ad nauseam for their contemporaries. If their bff points a phone at them, out comes the goofiness and ease. Let a parent make the same move, however, and an iron curtain of blank expressions descends.

I used to think it was just me, since, during my own kids’ adolescence, the questions I received most from the three of them, at the first appearance of a camera, were “really, Dad?” or “again the with camera” or both together. My own children were born too early to come of age in the “always on” era of cel snappers, but they definitely gave their pals a wider berth than myself when it came to striking a pose or showing me their “real face”. Turns out, blood or no blood, they all do it. I mean, I am annoying when armed with a camera, but that’s beside the point.

My wife’s grandsons have now entered the corridor of time in which she has to enact the will of Congress to get them to sit for portraits, suffused with coolness as they are. As the default chronicler for their lives since Day One, I still make the effort, but I work twice as hard rendering them, well, mere components within a composition, as you see here. Getting them to “act natural” when they are enjoying a day at the beach is, well, no day at the beach, and so I merely absorb them into their surroundings, as you see here. And, it’s no concern whether they will like seeing themselves this way, since neither one of them will show any interest in even seeing the results until they reach, say thirty. To get them to care that I even took the picture I would have to be thirteen, female, and cute. I mean, I’m fairly well-preserved, but everyone has their limits.