I finally got all of the pictures I had taken last month.

If you tend to be a philosophical person and have been feeling a desperate need for radical thoughts or personal insight, I suggest that you have pictures taken of yourself by a skilled photographer.

I suspect that a lot of us, especially those like myself, who don't have pictures taken of themselves often, probably have a somewhat warped sense of what we look like and of ourselves in general. I think that it's natural to base some, or much, of our self-identity on what we think we look like. While people-watching, we make guesses about strangers' characters, personalities and lifestyles based on what they look like to us. We know they do it back at us, but don't often get a chance to actually see what they perceive when they look at us. The conclusions we make that are based on the exterior could be right on, completely off the mark, or between the extremes. I figure the same applies to our perception of ourselves, even though most of us are not strangers to ourselves.

Pictures of yourself have the potential to show you what you don't see in mirrors or in your head. You might see a totally unfamiliar interpretation of who you are... perhaps based on what the photographer saw or what he/she wanted to show you or thought you wanted to see. You might get a reality-check. Or what you see may not actually be any closer to reality than the warped sense of yourself that you originally had... but it could still be revealing. You might be fascinated with what you see, as I was. You might even see yourself trying to communicate through your pictures... expressing what you really need to know or feel about yourself, but couldn't get through other means.

You could be forever changed. Or changed for just a few weeks or just days. But if you do tend to be a philosophical person and have been feeling a desperate need for radical thoughts or personal insight, even a few hours of novel perception could rock your world. Get your pictures taken.

What did my pictures reveal to me? Well, one thing was that I badly needed a haircut...