JulieLeung.com: a life told in tidepools

Okay, okay, the issue’s been raised and as a responsive and responsible blogger it’s time for me to address it….

Steven Noels commented on my pictures of Ted in the sunlight:

Nice pictures, Julie, but you’ve reached the point where it would become only fair if some pictures of yourself are also posted somewhere. 🙂

I am aware that I have not posted a picture of myself on this blog. I have my reasons.

First, I think it is good to have some mystique or intrigue when reading a blog. Without a visual image of the writer, the reader has to wonder who on earth is writing this stuff?! I like to try to give the imagination something to chew.

I also have some reservations about posting a picture of myself, fears that stem from the complications of human nature, the way people – including me! – are. It’s nice to be blogging in visual anonymity. No one (who hasn’t met me) knows what I look like (although I’ve left a few clues here and there and even a couple childhood photos.) For example, I fear that people will see my visual identity and make a judgment about me.: who wants to read about her life?! What if I’m not who you imagined me to be? Or at least I don’t resemble the blogger in your mind? Where will we be after that?

Then again, if blogs are a human voice, associating this text with a face should only make it more human and more authentic. As I’ve described, something happens when meeting in person, face-to-face. Maybe some sliver of this connection can occur through seeing photos of faces. My experiences at BloggerCon motivated me to begin reconsidering my “pictureless” policy.

And if I post a picture of myself, I prove I exist! Perhaps people are wondering whether I’m some figment of Ted’s imagination, a wife he cooked up and concocted into a blog for some fun dialogue 😉

Second, I don’t have a good picture of myself to post. I’ve hoped for a photo where my hair cascades across my face just so, my complexion glows immaculate, and I look both literary and pensive, as if I belong on a book cover. Somehow I have yet to get this picture of me. Now you know why my favorite song as a child was “You’re So Vain”.

Usually I’m the one grabbing the camera to take a shot. I do not appear in many of the photos in our family collection. Of the pictures of me that do exist, most of them were taken in the hospital during the birth of a baby. Posting one of these would surely get me some attention from the FCC.

Steven said “posted somewhere“. Okay, I didn’t yet link to the pictures from BloggerCon that were posted somewhere else. Will that qualify?

I appear in the middle of this picture posted by Dan Bricklin. I’m also in two other photos on the page.

There’s a photo of me here at the BloggerCon dinner taken by James Roberts (jr). And Sooz caught another one of Lisa Williams and me that night also.

Since blogging is about changing your mind, after writing up this response to Steven’s comment, I’ve decided to change my mind and post a picture of myself. It’s time to take the risk. Perhaps it is only “fair”, since I have posted quite a few pictures of other people on this blog. Perhaps attaching a face to this blog will only enhance the stories here and make me a more credible witness…so I hope…

Here’s one I found that seems acceptable to me and the FCC. Ted and Michaela are in the photo too. It’s a few years old, taken the night we dedicated our second daughter. I like the photo because it has Ted and one of my girls in it (wish it could have all of them); I’m wearing one of my favorite shirts; and my eyes are properly open (an accomplishment given my contact lenses!)

So ..after much ado about nothing…here we are…;)