camera shy

There was a photographer over the other night. She wasn't here just as a photographer, but he did keep taking pictures--not just of us, but the house, random objects, things she thought were beautiful, things I thought were silly. I asked her not to take any of me, and for the most part she respected that, but as the evening wore on she started trying to when I wasn't looking, trying to persuade me to let her, to stop looking away.

To be honest I don't know what I was afraid of. It wasn't just being genuinely captured on film--no one is genuine when they smile for the camera--but that had to be a part of it, right? She eventually asked me, when everyone else had gone to bed and I was still eluding her camera, why I was so camera shy. Answering the question would ruin it, I said. She insisted. I said it was so I could maintain an air of mystery. She said I was plenty mysterious enough--but that wasn't it, either. If I could have explained it I'd have let her take my picture.