Recently, while I was re-writing my biography on my website for the 100th time someone mentioned that I should tell the story of WHY I do what I do. Why am I a photographer? There is actually a good story behind that -other than the fact that I love photography and have ever since high school. Every photographer tells the story of when they fell in love with photography so let me tell you another story. This story is about my “a-ha” moment. The moment I realized I wanted to work with a female-based clientele. A few years ago during a fitness photoshoot I showed my client her image on the back of my camera and she exclaimed, “Is that me? I actually look beautiful!” I just looked at her and blinked a few times. Did she just say she actually looked beautiful?! Here I was working with this stunning woman and she didn’t consider herself beautiful. I was baffled. I turned to her and said, “Um, yes… this is what you look like. You ARE beautiful!”. I actually got to watch the moment she realized how beautiful she was.
To say it was an enlightening moment is an understatement. It was then I realized that I was surrounded by all these amazing women who didn’t realize how beautiful they were! Whether it was because they were too busy with kids, house life or because they focused on a particular fault instead of all their perfect parts. I’ve heard “I’m too chubby” “I hate my thighs” “but I’m too muscular” “I wish I didn’t have crooked teeth” …and the list goes on. I get it.
I fall into this category too.
I’m the one with the crooked teeth. My two front teeth are large and one crosses over the other. For years I would half-smile so you wouldn’t see my crooked teeth. Yes, that’s right I WOULDN’T SMILE A REAL SMILE BECAUSE OF MY TOOTH. Do you know how important a smile is to beauty? Needless to say, one day I realized that one of my brothers had the same damn crooked tooth and you know what? I loved it. It’s part of who he was. So wasn’t it part of who I was too? Needless to say it wasn’t long after this revelation that I started smiling again. Real smiles, big smiles… happy smiles!
So now I’m here to say that you need to love your perfect parts but also love your faults too. Let it go. Enjoy your life. Enjoy YOU.
Crooked teeth and all.
Happy post-photoshoot selfie 🙂
“It was then I realized that I was surrounded by all these amazing women
who didn’t realize how beautiful they were!”
Do you someone who could benefit from this post? Please use the links below to share it so we can remind ourselves that we are ALL beautiful and that it’s time to EMBRACE who we are.
xo Jess