A few weeks ago I was thumbing through my socials when some amber-lit images stopped my scroll. The pictures were of a high school classmate–magic-hour shots in a mountainside field. Beneath them she had written: “I decided the end of my 30s warranted some ‘graduation’ photos.” What struck me most about the photos was not how beautiful my friend looked. It was that she was alone. No kids, no partner, no family. Just her.
In her post, my classmate–Jenn Wessels, a special education professional from San Diego, California—went on to explain that she wished she had more pictures of her own mom at her age. Her mother, who died at 53, appears in few photos Wessels has now—“unless she was in the background, hiding behind a kid.”
Wessels’s solo-photos post went instantly viral within her network—the likes and what a great ideas poured in. It does seem that way: an idea. Even as photo-capture technologies have evolved, the role of a mom in photos has remained pretty static. She’s taking the photo or missing from the photo or hovering at its edges. (This is at least an improvement over, say, the “hidden mothers” of early child portraiture, when photographers would drape a woman in dark brocade while she held her toddler still.)
Things aren’t much different when it comes to non-moms or other genders, though; it’s not all kids stealing the focus. In 2024, the number of professional, non-selfie photos we have of adults by themselves feels entirely out of proportion to how many pictures we’re taking. And the idea of arranging for your photo to be taken alone feels, in this day and age, feels…something. Intimidating? Indulgent? An insurmountable Everest climb of self-confidence?
Wessels hatched the idea for her session over the course of an evening. “I saw a friend post a picture of their kid graduating from high school–a fancy photo shoot–and I thought, ‘Why don’t we do this at other times in our lives?’” She had also been through several surgeries and prevention measures over the course of her 30s–Wessels and her sisters both inherited the BRCA2 gene. She had been through an actual chapter, and wanted to mark its close.
So she messaged Paloma Lisa, a California-based photographer who had shot Wessels’s wedding—“really fast,” she says, before she could overthink it. Lisa loved the idea, but Wessels found herself backtracking after the date was set. “It sounds weird to say now, but I felt like I was wasting money—like I should be spending it on my family.” She asked Lisa if she could switch to a family photo session, but Lisa pushed back. “My heart sank when I got Jenn’s message asking to switch to a family session,” the photographer says. “I empathized with her. I could sense the fear of focusing on herself. Our culture can put a lot of pressure on [women] to feel like we have to have some major life event, in order to be worthy of photography.”
Eventually, they settled on a compromise: For half the session, Wessels would pose with her family; for half, she would pose alone. “It had its awkward moments,” Wessels says. “I’m not a super-outgoing person. But there were also moments where I felt really present and beautiful.” She pauses. “And then of course when I got the photos back my first instinct was to rip myself apart. I got to the point where I had to close them out, wait 24 hours, and go through them again.”
I was nodding when Wessels said this to me; I bet you’re nodding reading it. Though I would never dare talk about my appearance or body negatively in earshot of my kids, stepping out of group photos is one of the last great looks-insecurity strategies. So often, in the phase of life, a photo being taken is the culmination of a long getting ready period that has zero to do with me. I locate my son’s “nice shoes” from wherever they were flung the last time they had to wear them; I yank up my daughter’s tights and feel around her barrette drawer for the ones I know are in there. I wipe everyone’s faces while they yell, and then, all at once, it’s time to go. I never got to put my makeup on. While my children are wearing small classic things shipped from the UK, I am wearing leggings from an early-aughts trip to the Old Navy Factory Outlet. I have made clear, with my choices, who matters in this tableau. And so it follows, how often I find myself saying I’ll take it rather than cheese.
As for solo pictures: I’m an elder millennial. I never got comfortable with the selfie, which to me feels like a prerequisite to having an Instagram boyfriend, or to feeling confident staging photos of yourself alone in any situation. No, those of us who can remember rabbit ears on the TV are content to quietly pine, wishing that someone would take notice of our new earrings or wistful hand under chin and snap us. (This must have happened in a movie with Josh Hartnett at some point; how else would it be so deeply ingrained?)
And if the moment passes us by? I for one let it, while focusing all snapping and album-ing energies on children. (I haven’t gone as far as making pics of my kids my avatar on social, but I bet you can count several women who have.) Even as I let full years pass without a decent picture of myself, I’m always thinking: I’ll do it when I’m dressed nicer, or when these ill-advised layers grow out, or when my arm magically tones in the night. Maybe that’s why the rise of camera access hasn’t led to more photos of us; we always know–no, we think we know–there’s a next time.
So why are we so committed to our places out of frame?
“This is an issue tied up with thorny questions of beauty standards and ageism,” says Juliet Sperling, Assistant Professor and Kollar Endowed Chair in American Art History at the University of Washington. “But it does feel like the rise of the selfie killed the formal solo portrait. It allows you to circumvent this formal, expensive, ritualistic way of doing things. So to have a professional portrait taken outside of commonly accepted milestones–the school picture, the wedding, the maternity shoot, the headshot for a job–that feels radical to me.”
Clearly, many who viewed Wessels’s photos online felt similarly. “I think I had a glass of wine before I posted them,” she says. “But I was surprised by the reaction. It felt nice to have women reach out and say, ‘This is so cool, I want to do this, too.’ If I did this 20 years ago, I’d have felt so awkward. But now I think: I did all these things to save my life. I want some documentation of it.” Spoken like a true graduate.