This week’s prompt is based on the picture below. It’s one that when I saw it I wasn’t going to take part because it didn’t fit the story lines that I had already started. But I decided to push myself since it wasn’t a very good reason to not write.

I don’t want to say I struggled with what I wrote but it’s more that I feel like something is missing and I don’t know what it is. So please read and give me your feedback. Good, bad, or otherwise!

She had to get out from behind the camera, she knew that but it was more difficult that one would think.

Her life was her cameras, film, and her dark room. They brought her comfort like nothing else in the world could. With her camera she was part of everything that she took a picture of without having to actually interact with people.

Introvert. That was one way to put it. Shy, reserved, or wallflower were a few more but whatever you called it what it came down to was that she wasn’t comfortable with people.

She’d always been this way, for as long as she could remember. Playing the park as a little girl she’d always find the swing that was furthest from all the other kids or go sit under a tree and read a book.

It wasn’t until her parents bought her a camera for her 14^th birthday that she started to get out more. Still alone and still not mingling too much with others, but they were happy that it was a start.

Pictures became her life. She took her camera everywhere and took pictures of virtually everything and everyone. Most people didn’t realize that they were her subjects as she captured their smiles, their laughter, their games, families, and picnics in the park.

She captured the little things in life that she was missing out on and lived through her photos.

She’d sort through her best pictures, lay them out on the table, and just look at them. Why couldn’t she be the girl in the picture having a picnic with her boyfriend? Why couldn’t she be the young mother pushing the carriage through the park? Why couldn’t she be the one eating lunch with friends and laughing?

She surrounded herself with pictures, instead of people, wanting to be part of it all. She wanted to step outside herself and be a different person.

She wanted to change. But how?

For now she had her cameras and the world was her canvas. The world through pictures was her only friend.

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Pictures – The Rewrite

Based on some great feedback and the fact that this post just bothered me I decided to rewrite it but put it with the original so you could compare the two.

Looking down at the glossy photo as her tears started to slowly dissolve the image she became more angry. Why! The paper crumpled easily in her hands as the edges of the thick paper poked her palm as she crushed it. Pictures were supposed to evoke feelings from remembering a beautiful moment in life… not pain from the paper.

She had to get out from behind the camera, she knew that but it was more difficult than anyone imagined.

This was her life and she’d always been this way, for as long as she could remember.

Pictures became her life. With her camera slung over her shoulder or around her neck it everywhere with her and she took pictures of virtually everything and everyone. People didn’t realize that they were her subjects as she captured their smiles, their laughter, their games, families, and picnics in the park.

With every click of the shutter she captured the little things in life that she was missing out on and lived through her photos.

She sorted through her best pictures; laid them out on the table, and just looked at them. Why couldn’t she be the girl in the picture having a picnic with her boyfriend? Why couldn’t she be the young mother pushing the carriage through the park? Why couldn’t she be the one eating lunch with friends and laughing?

Playing in the park as a little girl she’d always find the swing that was furthest from all the other kids wishing that she wasn’t so afraid to talk to the other kids. Fear kept her from living life.

She surrounded herself with pictures, instead of people, wanting to be part of it all. She wanted to step outside herself and be a different person.

Change. Change is really what she wanted in her life. But how?

But for now she had her cameras and the world was her canvas. The world through pictures was her only friend.