Edited life less than picture perfect

Can you blow out those candles again, honey? The flash didn't take.

The Kodak moment - sometimes it seems even more important than the event itself. How many times have you had to repeat or stage something just so somebody could get a good picture of it?

It used to be that Dad was the family photographer - that's why he was never in the shots. Or if he was technosmart and quick, he figured out how to work the shutter delay and could be seen as a plaid-shirted blur leaping into the frame just in time to put his arm around mom and the kids.

But now, family photography has morphed way beyond a few quick Polaroids on vacation. These days, it seems like everybody has a digital camera, and thanks to the scrapbooking craze, capturing the moment has become more important than enjoying it.

Men still may be into photography gadgets, but go to any scrapbooking convention and you'll see it's women who are obsessed with creatively assembling their glossies.

For those of you unfamiliar with the scrapbooking craze, let me explain. Shoving your photos into a drawer or stuffing them in the back of an album you're going to create "one day" is no longer enough.

If you're really on the ball, you'll cut and crop your photos into unusual shapes and sizes, add some meaningful captions written in fancy calligraphy with a colored pen, put it together with overpriced paper and stickers, and behold - something as mundane as your kids watching TV becomes a two-page spread.

Your real life might not be perfect, but that's no reason for the scrapbook or video version not to be. Just pose, smile and shoot.

I'm all for creative expression, but I'm beginning to notice that many people seem more interested in documenting their lives than actually living them.

It was bad enough when Dad made the kids stop having fun, so they could pose and look like they were having fun for a photo. But I've actually heard women say, "It helps if you can imagine the spread before you go to the event, because then you know what pictures to get."

Hello - when did life become a series of photo ops?

These aren't professional photographers being paid by the hour or freelancers hoping to snag some extra cash by selling a mantel-size portrait of the bride. These are mothers taking the kids to the water park.

I can just imagine how much fun they're having as they hold the camera in front of their eye for 10 minutes waiting for Junior to shoot down the slide. "Try it again, honey, only this time make sure to twist your body toward me and smile when you go through the big loop."

And it's not just scrapbookers posing their way through life. Thanks to the rapidly falling price of digital camcorders, the ham and yams at Easter dinner can now be presented with all the pageantry of a Spielberg film. Pan wide to mom putting the crunchy onions of top of the green bean casserole.

People often say they create scrapbooks, take photos and make movies in order to preserve their memories. I certainly know the childhood birthdays where my parents took pictures are better etched into my mind than those in the years dad forgot to buy film. And watching some old 35-millimeter footage of my husband as a kid had our family laughing for weeks.

But like many great ideas, what started as something simple, fun, meaningful and creative has spun out of control. People are taking their scrapbooking and moviemaking so seriously, you'd think they were being judged.

And in a way they are. Scrapbook conventions may have contests to see who can come up with the most creative spread, but I suspect the real competition isn't about which scrapper can assemble the best layout.

The real competition is to see who can have the prettier life. And the scrapbook queens aren't the only ones who are entering it.

We all do it. It's when we're determined to edit out all the bloopers and bad hair days of our lives and only present the photogenic parts for the world to see.

I once heard a woman on Oprah say that she was finally happy because she was no longer trying to live the Kodak version of her life. I think what she meant was that she finally learned how emotionally engage in the moment she was in, instead of standing outside of it and judging how it might look to others.

Pictures are very interesting things. They're one-dimensional images that capture three-dimensional objects. And they're split-second glimpses of longer lasting events.

Photos can be useful, creative and fun, but taking them is no substitute for actually experiencing the real thing. And if you insist on editing out all the imperfect shots, all you're going to be left with is a bunch of scraps.

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