The Portrait Was Supposed to Show Me Exactly as I Am — Until I Saw What My Friend Had Softened

PART 2

Beth put the edited version beside it.

For several seconds neither of us spoke.

The differences were easier to see when the images were the same size. My jaw had been narrowed slightly. The skin under my chin had been smoothed. The lines beside my mouth were softened. The shadows below my eyes were lifted. My hair had been darkened at both temples, not only the silver streak.

“You did all of that?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Not a lab?”

“No.”

“Not some automatic preset you forgot was on?”

Beth looked offended. “I don’t use automatic face presets for exhibition work.”

I almost laughed.

“Good to know the erasure was handcrafted.”

“That is not fair.”

“Which part?”

“Erasure.”

She moved the cursor over the unedited image.

“Look at the light under your chin. It is flat. The lens exaggerated the lower plane. Your eye sockets went too cool. The hair picked up a blue cast. I corrected the picture.”

“Did correcting the picture require removing my laugh lines?”

“I did not remove them.”

“You negotiated them down.”

Beth leaned back in her chair.

“This is what portrait photographers do.”

“You told me this project was different.”

“It is different.”

“The wall card says unfiltered.”

“I already told you that doesn’t mean untouched.”

I stared at the two faces.

The original did not flatter me in every way. One eye was a fraction narrower because I was mid-laugh. There was a fold at my neck where I had turned toward Beth. My silver streak looked brighter than it did in my bathroom mirror.

I still preferred it.

“I told you at the sitting not to make me younger.”

Beth looked down.

“You said you didn’t want to look airbrushed.”

“I said, ‘Do not make me younger.’ You laughed and said, ‘God forbid.'”

She remembered. I could see it.

“I thought you meant you didn’t want to look fake,” she said.

“What did you think I would call this?”

Beth’s eyes moved back to the edited image.

When she answered, her voice was quieter.

“I thought you’d call it a good picture of yourself.”

I waited.

She rubbed one thumb along the edge of the desk.

“Honestly? I thought you’d thank me.”