I Do Not Take Normal Pictures

Alissa Grosso

Some of you who read this know my mom. (Hi, Mom!) If you are lucky enough to know her, then you know she is always taking awesome pictures with her phone. Mom’s Facebook page is filled with her beautiful photos of sunrises, sunsets, and the flora and fauna she comes across on her daily walks. Well, this is a case where the apple has fallen very far from the tree, because I have to admit even though I have a phone that’s very similar to my mom’s and is fully capable of taking stunning photos, I hardly ever utilize this for something that’s truly photogenic.

Sure, once in awhile when I remember I take a picture of some autumn leaves or a cool insect hanging out on our deck, but the truth is my camera roll is filled with very random and strange snapshots. This is something I am reminded of when my phone likes to surprise me with a random memory, or when I’m scrolling through the pictures I’ve taken during the year to try to cobble together a photo calendar as a Christmas gift.

This random photo might actually make it into this year’s photo calendar since it was taken during the process of making last year’s Christmas card, because nothing says Merry Christmas quite like a yellow leaf blower, an empty bottle of V8 and a cut up Solo cup:

Do your recall this gem? I took it for an earlier one of these weekly newsletters:

Here’s a photo of some light fixtures in Lowes. One of these was one we were considering buying at some point. I have no idea which, so obviously this photo did not prove to be especially helpful:

And speaking of not helpful . . . if I’m being honest a whole lot of the pictures in my camera roll are actually screenshots—ideas for art projects, stuff I want to remember to look up, most of the time I have no idea why I screenshotted an image. Sometimes I make the effort to leave myself helpful notes like on this one. (If you can’t make out my serial killer scrawl it reads “FOR PLAID.” ) No, I have no idea what it means either:

This one’s pretty meta. It’s a photo of my phone on my phone (okay, technically I snapped it with the iPad). Because doesn’t everyone have a photo of their phone artfully placed near some ornamental grasses?

Okay, I actually know that I took that photo of my phone so that I could create a mockup image to use with some phone cases I designed. But why did I take this picture of a somewhat sad looking Christmas cookie? I certainly can’t remember!

Occasionally I actually take cool photos, but even then they’re still weird. One winter, I took a picture of a cool way the snow rolled off my windshield:

So, if you ever get jealous of someone on social media who seems to have the best photos ever, just remember there’s plenty of us out there with a photo library full of bizarre/boring images.

— Alissa

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Weekly Inspiration

What I’m Reading: Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan

What I’m Watching: Murder on the Orient Express

What I’m Listening to: “15 Minutes” by The Strokes

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Find out more about my books at alissagrosso.com

Find out more about my digital art at alissacarin.com

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My apologies for the typos and such this post is almost certainly riddled with.