Patricia Gallagher Newberry
Enquirer contributor

Having just tucked a year of snapshots into albums and having just hung a decade of pictures on the walls, I am struck, anew, at the power of a photograph.

And at the myth that a picture doesn't lie.

I'll allow that some of the radiant, joyful faces filling my albums and walls depict truly radiant, joyful people.

But only the face behind the lens - mine, most often - remembers whether the smiles were real or manufactured for the moment.

Snap! My three darlings, assembled for another traditional kids-on-couch photo, look angelic in their dress-up best. Was it just moments before they were elbowing their way into position, with one or the other demanding the middle spot?

Snap! There they are, three abreast, in the stern of a boat, perfect little Florida tourists.

Hey, weren't those the brats running on deck, slamming doors and ignoring their parents' admonishments all cruise long?

Snap! Another holiday trip to the Wal-Mart studio, all three dressed in red.

Who'll ever remember it took 30 full minutes to coax a single smile from the boy in that cute reindeer sweater?

Snap! An enemy becomes a friend.

Snap! Feuding siblings become hugging buddies.

Snap! Pouting pusses turn to cover-kid smiles.

Filling in the captions

With selective shooting (and editing), dulled are the memories of children upset by their hair or wardrobe or sibling, parents upset by their children and photos upset by upset subjects.

Not that a bit of truth can't be glimpsed in or between some of the happy faces.

There's one of a wedding party, sans the flower girl who stormed off over some slight.

There's one of a birthday party, where the straight-lipped hostess (that'd be me) watches with less than elation as her son and his pals make rude noises with their armpits.

There's one of a 2-year-old daughter in velvet, smiling sweetly for the same studio photographer she wouldn't sit still for just two weeks prior.

There's one of a clown, frowning under her painted-on smile; and one of a soccer player, none too delighted to be heading to the field; and one of a beachcomber, poster-perfect during a break between pre-nap tantrums.

Face the future

And then there's the classic Game Face photo in our house - in fact, there's a whole collection.

In that album, the bride smiles widely in every shot, the stress of a late limo, a disaster of a cake and one of the worst hair days of 1990 barely noticeable in her plastic grin.

Twenty or 30 years from now, as I leaf through years of albums and decades more of framed photographs, those will be but faded recollections.

The less-than-idyllic details will disappear, I hope, as quickly as the years captured in the pictures.

With any luck, only the radiant joy, evident in smiles frozen for all time, will live on, convincing an older me that all my family's times were good times.

E-mail patti@marriedwchildren.com