Better? Ali at twenty-eight…

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/better/

Some people are effortlessly, and consistently, photogenic. I have never been one of them. Shy, lacking confidence and light sensitive from an early age, photos of me are, if I am honest, more miss than hit, though there are, of course, good ones amongst the many duds!

Thirty-one years ago, however, a man I knew then, John Butler (local artist and actor in Weston-super-Mare), took a photo of me which is not just better than the average, but is, in my opinion, the best image ever captured of Yours Truly.

Unfortunately, my photographic skills are no better than my drawing ones – and so all attempts to reproduce said photo have failed to do justice to the original.

John dressed me in a Pre-Raphaelite long purple dress; I plaited parts of my hair back. I was posed in front of a bird cage – and the photo was taken.

Better than anything taken before or since, that image of the twenty-eight year old self has, I feel, captured my essence.