Write about a character who’s pathologically camera shy.

Posted in Character on Oct 26, 2022

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✍️ 21 stories

“Picture Perfect” by Zack Powell

Submitted to Contest #144

Content warning: Eating disorderMy friends used to believe I was an only child. Whenever I'd invite one over for the first time and we passed by the framed photos on the way to my bedroom—of me and my mother smiling on the sandy beaches of Maui, or the two of us standing beside the Grand Canyon, arms locked in a sweaty embrace—they always took the pictures at face value, and not once did I bother to correct them. As far as they knew, Holly Johnson didn't exist.Though, had she appeared in any of our family photos, perhaps they would have mist...

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“Snap it all up, Detective. ” by Holly Guy

Submitted to Contest #144

No no, you will not get a photo of me, Detective. But you can get a photo of my work. Snap. Snap. Snap. Get all the good angles, please. I spent a very long time ensuring that everything was right. The hanging body to the left of the warehouse, the bloody body to the right of the swimming pool… My work must be photographed beautifully. After all, I’d do the same for you if you had taken this much time ensuring everything was picture perfect. Oh, by the way, did you like the way I arranged the bodies this time? In the shape of a heart…...

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“Not Another Picture.” by Brian Rains

Submitted to Contest #144

For many years her mother complained about not having any pictures, of her radiant face as she calls it, to hang on the front room walls. After Arabella turned fourteen she just down right refused to take any photos, or be put in family videos.Arabella had always ran from her father with a camcorder, when he came shooting for family memories. She would crouch and hide when someone called out for family group pictures.Arabella had a condition that made her stomach squirm when even the word photograph was mentioned. Over the years though, she ...

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“Light Is an Introvert” by Graham Kinross

Submitted to Contest #144

“I, Light am an introvert. People think that because I shed myself on things without people having to ask that I’m outgoing. Wrong. I’m just dutiful. Whenever I can, I retreat into nothingness and let Darkness show off.” The woman in the black suit across the table from Shawn sighed. Her dark, almost black skin showed the glint of the whites of her eyes. “We have a deal for you,” said a man in a white suit covered in rhinestones who appeared from nothing next to Shawn. “...

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“The Hunt” by Cynthia Maria Grace

Submitted to Contest #144

I find the man I love waiting for me in the living room. Dressed up for an evening out. The opportunity is too tempting to pass by. I approach him ever so gently not to alarm him into awareness. The floor betrays me with its unsought creek. He sees me and appears unsuspectingly pleased by my atypical on-time arrival. His head turns slightly, then stops abruptly. Rendered catatonic when he sees my hands. His nostrils flare and his breath quickens as he maps his escape. Eruption ensues with his 10 fingers re...

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“Kodachrome” by T.M. Kehoe

Submitted to Contest #144

Every year, at yearbook time, Kevin missed school on picture day. Then somehow he missed the makeup photo day, too. In place of his portrait, there was a blank silhouette in the yearbook, with his name underneath. Our town is small, and the high school even smaller, so folks were laid back about his oddity. It became a kind of standing joke by his junior year. “Where’s Kevin” instead of “Where’s Waldo.” After graduation, I found out college didn’t suit me… a nice way of saying I failed all my classes the f...

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“The Photographer” by Carmen Ella

Submitted to Contest #144

The Photographer Little Mary's mother had laid the special dress out on her bed. It was a special dress for a special little girl on a special day. Little Mary was going to have her picture taken. The Photographer wasn't just any old random photographer. It was her dad. Little Mary's dad had just taken up photography as a hobby and wanted to practice his hobby by taking a picture of his favorite subject, his precious baby girl. "Who's ready to get her picture taken by daddy?" Mary's mother entered the room and picked up the little dress ...

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“The White Woman” by Frances Hogg Lochow

Submitted to Contest #144

Antony hefted his equipment bags to his shoulder and watched the lights on the elevator panel tick upward. When the doors opened, he saw her at the end of the hall. She wore a long, black coat and held a shopping bag in one arm as she fitted the key into her lock. He was struck by two things—her abundance of platinum-white hair that fell past her slender hips, and the pure-white Afghan hound that waited patiently at her side. He was pleased to see that the new tenant was a woman, and wondered if she was single. He'd broken off with Ashley...

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“Skewed Perspective - How I Became Pathologically Camera Shy” by Susan Wilkins

Submitted to Contest #144

Hello, I am Bernice, and I was pathologically camera shy for many years. Here is how that came to be. My father started taking pictures of me from birth. Back then cameras used flashbulbs. They were extremely bright and left you blind for some seconds at a time (which seemed a lot longer). As I grew to be a toddler I started hiding from my dad whenever he had his camera. I knew what came next, sudden bright flash almost painful to the eyes, and blindness. I hated it! When I could not hide fast enough, I cried. I had become camera shy. From...

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“Captured ” by Sophia Nwachukwu

Submitted to Contest #144

What I remember is the pain and the cold, I remember the cold because it was so odd it startled me, that painful numbing sensation you get when playing with snow bare handed crawled up my body until I was engulfed by it. For a heartbeat, I felt nothing. I was not a part of my body or this world, I existed in the ‘somewhere’, the intangible place beyond our universe that people reference when they cannot express what exactly they mean by an afterlife, a term humans seem to innately understand. The pain was immediate, flooding my body like lig...

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“Talking to a statue” by Sally Atl

Submitted to Contest #144

Do you remember how we took this photo? It was Halloween 2016 and we were already seventeen. But we still went Trick-or-Treating. We shamelessly took Oliver's toy bucket with us and filled it to the top with candy. We were young, almost children. And our friendship, so pure and innocent, reminded me of those watermelon ice creams, which we often bought at the roadside shop. They don't make it anymore but the taste is not forgotten. The streetlights burned dimly in the darkness, and the conversation of children could be heard far off at the t...

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“That Day” by Mario Owens II

Submitted to Contest #144

That Day A giant shark named Hank once lived in a large big yellow ocean. Unlike most sharks that only eat every two to three days, Hank has to eat once a day to maintain his massive size. Hank comes from a family of large sharks by which they were known all over the Yellow Ocean as the family that originated from Mammoth Underwater World. The Mammoth Underwater world is an area located near the center of the earth where it is known that all sharks from this area overate. This makes it impossible for Hank's family to be a standard size. Ha...

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“Smile for the Camera” by Stephen Hockenbarger

Submitted to Contest #144

Orville was staring into the crashing waves, trying desperately to remember his dreams from last night. It was no use. Like every night, he felt it passed all too quickly in a fevered blur and in his waking moments felt no more rested than he had when his head hit the pillow the night before. The monotonous sound of water on rocks quieted his thoughts and allowed him to focus on his dreams. “Excuse me?”, a man’s voice injected in his mind sharply. “Excuse me, sir?” Turning his head, Orville saw a young man with his wife standing next to hi...

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“Life-Fed Scenes” by Lore Ax-Horton

Submitted to Contest #144

Peter stood in the circle taking his turn to enjoy a mighty pull on the joint before passing it on to the next guy, Parker. Parker swayed drunkenly. Peter was just sick of the whole mess of it all. He felt as though he were looking at Parker through the wrong end of binoculars. Parker seemed far away, swaying in the center of a hyper-focused circle. Black hair sticking out every possible direction, glasses broken and smudged, looking to be slipping down his narrow nose. Wine colored button up, unbuttoned. White not white shirt now seen betwe...

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“Cuckoo Eggs” by Eoin Treanor

Submitted to Contest #144

Taking a photograph of an invisible dragon is proving to be more difficult than I expected. You would think that the invisibility aspect would be the glaring obstacle in this puzzle, but Daisy takes care of that issue herself, with the help of the vast, muddy bog she seems to use as a home, a playground and a bath. Daisy is the dragon’s name, or at least it that is the name I have given her. She hasn’t heard it. I know that Daisy is a ‘she’ because of the eggs. Five speckled turquoise eggs, basketball sized, lie far ...

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Write about a character who’s pathologically camera shy.

Submissions are closed

✍️ 21 stories

“Picture Perfect” by Zack Powell

“Snap it all up, Detective. ” by Holly Guy

“Not Another Picture.” by Brian Rains

“Light Is an Introvert” by Graham Kinross

“The Hunt” by Cynthia Maria Grace

“Kodachrome” by T.M. Kehoe

“The Photographer” by Carmen Ella

“The White Woman” by Frances Hogg Lochow

“Skewed Perspective - How I Became Pathologically Camera Shy” by Susan Wilkins

“Captured ” by Sophia Nwachukwu

“Talking to a statue” by Sally Atl

“That Day” by Mario Owens II

“Smile for the Camera” by Stephen Hockenbarger

“Life-Fed Scenes” by Lore Ax-Horton

“Cuckoo Eggs” by Eoin Treanor

🌟 Similar prompts

Start your story with somebody taking a photo.

Write a story about a wedding photographer.

A character finds an old roll of film, and takes it to be developed. What do they find?

Write a story that centres around an Instagram post.

Contest #144

Enter our weekly contest!

$250

Prize money

192

Contest entries

115

Stories

Win $250 in our short story competition 🏆

Explore more writing prompt ideas: