That’s Not Columbia!

Do you have a particular way you like to be photographed? We’re all familiar with those old familiar Hollywood lines like “I’m ready for my closeup” or “Shoot me from my best side.” The advent of the selfie has revealed a whole new kind of artistry when it comes to revealing one’s best side.

Have you ever seen a photograph of someone you know and yet somehow it doesn’t even look like them? Perhaps it’s the lighting or the angle. Maybe it’s makeup or what they are wearing. I had an experience like that but it wasn’t with a person. It was with Columbia.

Fox 5 DC did a story about a recent Wallet Hub survey but that’s not what caught my eye. It was this:

Photo property of Fox 5 DC

My first thought was: that’s not Columbia!

I clicked on the article and there was that photo again, along with this one:

Photo property of Fox 5 DC

Oh, okay. I know where that is.

But, honestly, I felt a bit indignant. Of all the Columbia views that we know and love, why did Fox 5 choose ones that were so ordinary and unappealing? (This is not a swipe at Town Center, by the way, which has plenty of photo-worthy vistas.) One wonders if the station just sent someone to drive through town and they took a picture from their car at a stop light.

There’s nothing false about the photos. They were indeed taken in Columbia. But I realized that I do have a rather proprietary feeling about what kind of views I want my town to be presenting to the world. That’s probably been reinforced over the years by the consistent usage of the old familiar locations such as the Lakefront and the People Tree, Open Space with all its pathways, pools and tot lots. You know what I mean: Columbia green and beautifully landscaped. Modern in a retro-Columbia sort of way. Dare I say “iconic”?

Columbia has always had mundane and unexceptional views. Every place does. We just don’t publicize them.

So this is probably more a blog post about me and my preconceived ideas about what Columbia looks like and less of a critique of the Fox 5 photographer. It activated that same sort of feeling I had when Julia Louis-Dreyfus bemoaned the unpleasantness of her Columbia experience while filming Veep. I didn’t like how it made us look. Or maybe how it made me feel.

Of course, to us, Columbia is a place unlike any other. We have our own wacky brand of exceptionalism. - - #morethangateway, Village Green/Town², December 12, 2013

We can’t control how people see us. Perhaps in the early years we could. The older Columbia gets, the less that will be so. Still - - it was such a disorienting feeling to look at that photograph and, for just a moment, have absolutely no idea where it was.

What do you think?

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