Hudson's Photo of Me

Alexander Chow-Stuart by Hudson Chow-Stuart.

Like most writers, I do not especially like being photographed - in fact, usually, I do all I can to avoid it, unless it is a family snap with our children, when I feel totally relaxed.

I do not have a natural love affair with the camera - unless behind it (I love taking pictures) - but Hudson (seven) has had his own camera, and one of our old iPhones, since he was three, and is quite the accomplished photographer - not only taking pictures, but using various apps of his own discovery to enhance them, colorize them, and otherwise have fun with them.

I would not usually post a photograph of me here, but this picture - which Hudson took completely unexpectedly, when I was sitting at my desk writing - captures more of who I think I am (which may or may not be close to other people's perceptions:) than most photographs of me that I have ever seen.

I think the reason is that when I look at Hudson, I "see" love - or see with love. When I look into the lens of a camera, I see something akin to HAL, the threatening robot in Stanley Kubrick's 2001!

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Alexander Stuart

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