A number of factors have come together recently that have given me a brief moment of clarity. Hopefully, I won't muddy things up too badly in my attempt at putting this experience into words.
Over the past year, the soap and beauty product company Dove has been leading a campaign called Real Beauty, in which they discuss aspects of how our culture has created and fostered an artificial and generally unattainable ideal when it comes to how women "should" look. The most recent was rather poignant for me, called "Real Beauty Sketches." Briefly, women were seated next to an FBI forensic sketch artist, separated by a curtain, and asked to describe themselves as accurately as they could. Then, a stranger would be brought in and asked to describe that same woman after having met her briefly before the sitting. When confronted with the two sketches side-by-side, many women discovered that the face staring back at them from the left side of the board -- representing how they saw themselves -- looked heavier, sadder or angrier, and generally less attractive than the sketch drawn from the recollections of a stranger. (To see the video, click here: http://youtu.be/XpaOjMXyJGk)
I've also been working through a program called Strengths Finder, which as the title suggests is designed to help identify my strengths and what career and life choices I could make that would best capitalize on those strengths in order to advance in my career and be happier overall. It struck me that on a physical level, this is exactly what we probably all need to do when it comes to our own self image. Because of the distorted and extremely narrow view of beauty in America, the vast majority of the population feels it is too fat, too short, too tall, too dark, too light, nose too big, eyes too small, hair too short or long, and so we need plastic surgery, colored contact lenses, expensive clothes and cosmetics, and extreme diets and exercise regimens to try to achieve an ideal of beauty that many of us never reach, and honestly never should. We don't spend enough time focusing instead on what is beautiful about each and every one of us, and work instead on accentuating and building upon what is right about our bodies. In a lot of ways, my work in boudoir photography can help do just that.
I know what some people would think about that statement. "Oh, you're just taking dirty pictures of girls! That's demeaning and objectifying, not empowering!" They say that because they've missed the point; this isn't pornography, but a way for a woman to express her beauty and sexiness, just as much to herself as to the people to whom she chooses to show her boudoir photos. Talking with other boudoir photographers, I've heard lots of stories of how a nervous soccer mom or a recent cancer survivor came into the studio seeking to reconnect with themselves through the lens of a camera, and were stunned to see just how beautiful they really were, just the way they are. A little makeup, a nice outfit (or lack thereof), and an objective set of eyes were all that were required to bring out the hottie from within the veneer of the everyday.
We get so self-conscious about our appearance that many of us choose to hide behind clothes that don't fit properly, make excuses not to go out on the town with friends, and avoid being photographed whenever possible because we don't feel attractive enough to be seen in public or immortalized on film. The face we see in the mirror each morning is never going to be good enough, because we view it through the additional distorting lens of our expectations of ourselves -- the self we SHOULD be, but haven't quite made it to just yet. But once I earn a woman's trust enough for her to let go of those expectations and enjoy a moment of sexiness in my studio, I hope to show her that not only is there nowhere to hide when her clothes come off, but that there isn't anything to hide, anyway -- she's beautiful just the way she is. Yes, she's a little wider around the midsection than Heidi Klum, but guess what? So are the rest of us. What about her expressive eyes, her warm smile, her amazing legs? Why not focus on those?
So you think you're too fat to do a boudoir shoot? Too old? Too flat-out ugly? There isn't a single feature of your body that you like at all, and think there's no way I can make you look beautiful on camera? Challenge accepted, lady. Give me a call, schedule a session, and when you meet up with me again to look at the finished photos, if you absolutely hate everything you see, I will give you your session fee back. There will never be any obligation to buy prints and products after a shoot, and no minimum order -- first and foremost, I want you to enjoy the experience of a boudoir shoot with me, and I want you to walk away feeling beautiful and sexy. In fact, that's the ultimate goal of my boudoir business: I want those photos of you to look so amazing that you can't walk away without buying them all, and feeling they're worth every penny. Then I want you to take it from there, and extend the confidence you feel knowing how good you look to permeate all the other aspects of your life. When you look good and feel good, you're more likely to take better care of yourself, both in terms of physical as well as emotional health. You are bolder, and more likely to strive for greater things, and you not only hang out with other beautiful and powerful people, but also find it easier to see the beauty in everyone around you.
My message to everyone reading this (yes, both of you) is simply this: You are beautiful just the way you are. And if I've got to bring my entire studio over to your house in order to prove it to you, then that is exactly what I'm going to do. I'm waiting for your call!
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