the larger questions

there are two types of pictures, a small one, pasted in job application forms, in pasports and saving accounts, where your whole self is not required, the image below chest is usually edited out.
it is not short of a miracle that people are actually identified via these tiny passport pictures, often taken without color, preserved for years since the day you were a kid. passport pictures make you small, manageable,and often invisible to those who are supposed to keep watch.
i always keep couple of them handy, just in case these are to be pasted in some tiny box.
then there are these full-size photographs, often with a colourful studio background, taken at a certain age, for certain purposes appropriate of that age.
girls are decked up in some traditional dress, accosted to look pretty, these pictures are the saddest ones i usually see.
these pictures are not mere information, as the passport one wer; these seek judgement. these pictures are opinion about a person, enable the viewer to rate the person against others, not merely identify..
then there are group photographs, in formal settings, your quota in the picture reflects your quaota of everything in life..
the best pictures do not usually have human beings, but of beings that cannot comprehend their likenes to the image,..
the best images are images of beings too engaged to notice, or to naive to comprehend..