What Story Does Your Face Tell?

My brother is writ­ing a book with his step­daugh­ter about their scar­ily par­al­lel sto­ries as can­cer fight­ers and sur­vivors. At the moment, they’re work­ing on author pho­tos for the book cover. This process has made me think about the sto­ries that faces tell, or hint at; the mes­sages that can be per­ceived sub­lim­i­nally when your photo appears in dif­fer­ent con­texts — like a book jacket, a Face­book page, etc.

One of my friends has just had a big pro­mo­tion. An expert in per­sonal brand­ing, she’s in the process of chang­ing all of her online pro­file pho­tos to be more con­sis­tent with her new role as a world­wide exec­u­tive for a major soft­ware com­pany. Per­sonal brand­ing is also an issue for my brother and his daugh­ter as they plan how best to mar­ket their book and increase the audi­ence of poten­tial read­ers.

Given the “Big C” sub­ject of their story, their book’s cred­i­bil­ity could be under­mined by their phys­i­cal beauty. The authors have cho­sen to work with a pho­tog­ra­pher who earns his liv­ing shoot­ing fash­ion mod­els for glossy mag­a­zines. This makes hand­some peo­ple down­right glam­orous.

But for­tu­nately, for the sake of mar­ket­ing his book, my brother’s face hints at the story he has to tell. He has blogged exten­sively about his fight, and has begun men­tor­ing oth­ers who con­front sim­i­lar bat­tles. The book is his response to his fans’ requests to hear more about his story.

At least to those of us who know and love him, his face reveals some of  the pain of his bat­tle with head and neck can­cer (caused by a virus). In many of her pho­tos, his step-daughter’s face seems less marked by her bouts with can­cer. The bless­ings of youth, per­haps?

I’m glad they chose a photo that reveals some of the anguish they’ve suf­fered. Had they not done so, had their photo been “too beau­ti­ful,” it might have raised ques­tions about the authen­tic­ity of their story.

It’s a beau­ti­ful story, and one that could help many oth­ers when their book is finally pub­lished. Beau­ti­ful faces, beau­ti­ful story, but scary sub­ject mat­ter.