A picture paints a thousand words
With the annual Les Rencontres d’Arles photography festival kicking off this month, here we look at some useful photo-related phrases and French expressions.
Where else could we begin but with the selfie, obligatory every ten seconds by today’s smartphone-wielding youngsters. Once upon a time, taking one’s own image for posterity was a more considered affair, and had the grander name of un auto-portrait in France. Today, though, un selfie will do the trick.
While the most common way of saying ‘to have your picture taken’ is se faire prendre en photo, it is also common to hear se faire tirer en photo. It can also be used when describing ‘having a photo opportunity’.
Commanding a group to adopt a grin for a photo has ‘say cheese’ in English – but this is obviously not translated into dites fromage as this would not produce the required mouth position. Instead, the French will ask you to make like a marmoset by enthusiastically saying ouistiti. This opens the mouth into a perfect grin shape.
Popular advertising slogans often find their way into the French lexicon – and “clic-clac, merci Kodak” is a famous one. Stemming from an ad for the US firm’s Instamatic – in which the word Kodak is cunningly rhymed with the sound of a shutter closing – its usage has morphed beyond mere snapping. It is now uttered by those who have completed a little job quickly, easily or without bother.
If someone appears to be staring at you a little too intently, you might say with a hint of passive aggression and a touch of irony: tu veux ma photo? (do you want a picture?). Be warned, though: witty teenage wags might reply ‘oui, pour mon album de singes’ (‘Yes, for my album of monkey photos’).
Finally, if you take a ‘head to toe’ or full-length photo of someone, it is called a – portrait en pied.
