For Now On, I Will Choose to See Beautiful
"Can I see?" Alexis asked. She's currently in a phase where common sense has caught up with vanity. She wants to see as many photos of herself as possible, and now she understands that the photo have to be taken in order for her to see them.
I turned the camera around so that she could catch a glimpse of herself. She looked at her image and instantly broke out into a big grin. "I look beautiful!" she said.
She did look beautiful in the photo, even with the dry-crusted kid dirt all over her face, wild hair, and goofy crooked smile.
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As she walked into the room, her body language spoke volumes. Not only did the gorgeous woman with the perfectly coiffed rich brown hair not want to have her photo taken, she was downright miserable just thinking about it. I'm not a fan of being on the other side of the camera either, so I tried to make it as quick and painless as possible.
Five snaps of the camera later, I felt certain my goal had been achieved. I had a head shot suitable for a website that showed just enough of the woman's personality to not be stiff. As a bonus, the lighting in the room was perfect for highlighting her stunning brown eyes. I turned the camera to give the woman a preview of the photo.
"Ugh," she said as her face turned downward. "I look horrible."
She didn't. At all. But, I understand not liking photos, so I asked what I could change. The lighting? The angle? Did she want to try smiling a bit wider?
"Can you make it look like I'm 20 pounds thinner?" she responded in a tone that dripped of self-doubt.
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For the second time in as many weeks, someone had asked to pay me to take some photos for them. Which, um, OKAY! BRING IT ON! It was a rambunctious 2-year old on the other side of the camera this time. She hammed it up, gleefully grinning at me before running away. She had turned the photo session into a wicked fun game of Hide-n-Seek. As her mom scooped her up to bring her back towards me for the fiftieth time, I managed to catch a few candid shots of the two of them looking at each, huge grins across their faces.
Later, looking at the images on my laptop, I smiled as I looked at love captured digitally.
When I sent the image files to the woman a few days later, I noted that the photo of her with her daughter was one of my favorites. She replied back, "UGH! I look awful in that photo. It looks like I haven't slept in days."
Even looking at the photograph now, I don't see it. I see an amazing woman with joy-filled eyes and a toddler looking lovingly at the person who is her entire world.
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"I got a great photo of you," I said. "Did you see it?"
"What have you been taking?" she asked. "I look awful."
"What the hell are you talking about? You look hawt," I replied.
"You are a terrible liar," she responded.
When I look at the photo, I see a stunning redhead. Her eyes sparkle with energy and you can just tell that she lights up a room when she walks in. The photo captures that good sort of crazy, the good sort of crazy that can make any situation more fun, any moment funnier, and every day a little bit brighter. The photo is one of my favorites I have ever taken because it so perfectly captures her, and she is beautiful.
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I don't like to have my photograph taken. I am highly skilled at ruining a photo with a goofy face, a side effect of talking with pretty much every inch of my body. I can't lie because my facial expressions pretty much always tell the whole story. In fact, I don't even need to open my mouth for people to know what I'm thinking.
Right now what I'm thinking is that I wish we didn't do this to ourselves.
I mean, I think we all start out like Alexis--loving to look at photos of ourselves and genuinely seeing beauty in those images. When does that change? When do we become so insecure with our own appearances that we can't even see the beauty that is obvious to others?
And how do I keep it from happening to Alexis?
She is beautiful. Crusty face, wild hair, goofy smile, and all.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Reader Comments (27)
guilty as charged.
wish i could fix that....
Guilty. Somewhere around age 25 I forbid anyone to take my picture, and all those that exist look horrid to me. I have been known to be quite nasty about it as well (aka "um, NO, you do not have permission to post that, thanks").
I do the same thing.
One of the most beautiful pictures of my niece Elise was taken at a dairy farm, after eating ice cream and playing on their playground...she is filthy, just filthy in the face with dirt and sticky and lord knows what, and she is gorgeous. I know one day she will hate that picture but I hope that day never comes.
Is it going to sound bad if I say that I think I still look pretty good in photos? Although I do hate my profile... I think you're right though. We need to try to see the beauty in ourselves and especially keep stressing it to our girls that they are gorgeous no matter what.
I totally do this. I paid quite a bit of money to have a photographer take some family pictures, but to be mostly of my son. She's a fantastic photographer, and I am sure the pictures are great, but I can barely look at the ones I am in. It is horrible that we do this to ourselves.
I am not sure what makes her different, but I actually have a teenager cousin that loves her pictures. Saying how beautiful she is, and we always look at her likes she's a little strange and that is sad. More like she just has good self esteem, and is a confident young woman.
Good for your daughter! You teach her beauty isn't what tv and media want us to believe it is. Self esteem begins early. I detest photos of myself. Then again I grew up in the Cosmo age......................
I like having my picture taken, but not because I think I look good in pictures. I want photographic proof that I was there - I was at ALL of the kids' events, vacations, weekends, weeknights, etc. I take at least 100 pictures a month and I'm never in them. And that bothers me. But, this wasn't your point, so I'll move on...
When you figure it out, could you let me know? My kids all think they're adorable!
I am the worst critic of myself in pictures. I think I look awful in half the pictures I take! I don't know how to stop the insanity of being so harsh with myself. I love myself, but I'm certainly not at the point where I'm okay with everything I see in pictures or in the mirror.
i just love you.
One side effect of my aversion to photography is there are mercifully few pictures of "fat Derrick". I can't think of the last time I wanted my picture taken, but I did let Gwen take one when we visited the science center in Plzen 2 weeks ago.
My problem with pictures right now is that I am still carrying all my baby weight - 18 months later. It should be gone. I should be back to that 155 lbs I was when I got pregnant. I don't want to be 110, 120, 130. That's too skinny. But I don't want to be what I am either.
Pictures of me like this only make me ashamed of how little willpower I seem to possess.
Gah. If you figure out how, market it for millions. It's worth it.
Love. This. Post.
Think of how often we do this to others as well. Years ago I started playing a game when I feel really miserable and hateful, you know the mood where you just feel evil towards other people. Instead of looking at them and mocking, I try to look at people through the eyes of someone that loves them. Nearly everyone is loved by someone, even if its just their mother. You can see the loving little boy in a grown man's face, you can see the cherished partner in a chubby middle aged woman, you can see the beautiful teen-aged bride in the oldest woman. It sounds corny (it IS corny) but when I'm really really bitter and misanthropic, it mellows me out and makes me feel good.
I know its not exactly what you meant, but I think our self loathing extends to others and boomerangs back on us sometimes.
Wonderful post. I would love to know when this happens as well, and I am just as guilty as the other women you mention. Gah.
Great post. When I learned we are having a daughter, I turned to Sam and said, "well, that's it - I can never say 'I'm fat' again - my parents said it about themselves so often that I started thinking I must be fat at a very early age (of course, wasn't) - I don't imagine a lot of rules for my daughter in terms of other people's behavior but I do know one: no one is going to be allowed to say "I'm fat" or "I'm ugly" around her...
Do what I do: just give up caring about having your picture taken. Who cares if you can see that tummy roll that refuses to disappear? When I'm gone, my girls are going to look back and love that picture of me. When I realized I can count on two hands the number of pictures I have of my mom, I decided to hell with how I looked. I was going to be in as many pictures as people wanted to take, I was going to smile and have fun, and by golly, I was going to look hottttt. No matter how I looked. I had to fake it for awhile, but now, my "Just have fun!" attitude is for real. And I'm pretty sure my girls know that. :-)
Oh, I love you.
I'm going to have to keep this in mind. Like hardcore.
I have to work at this too. I'm the same woman that hates the way she photographs (and/or looks) most of the time. I'm trying to work on it. Its a slow process :)
Before I had a kid, I inserted myself in many photo ops. It was not that I necessarily thought I looked great, but I just wanted to be a part of the whatever was going on. Now I am hardly in any pics. A big part of it is because I am aware that I am older and not as photogenic. But reading your post makes me want to make more of an effort.
She sure is! We are ALL beautiful, but society makes us uber critical of ourselves. So, unless you plan to lock her in her room for the rest of her life, it is probably inevitable. But, you'll instill her with good self esteem, so at least she'll have the tools to combat it somewhat.
get. out. of. my. head.
this struck straight to my core.
Crap - I am so guilty of this yet want so badly for my daughters to escape it.
I was reminded of your post tonight at dinner. My husband had joked that my FB profile picture was an odd choice because I was all squinty in the sun. So today I took a quick one to replace it. I told him I replaced it and he didn't remember making the original comment but said he didn't understand my thing with photos of myself. He said when he was backing up my photos to an external harddrive, he found 3 photos of me I had taken with the webcam on my computer that he loved. They are now the desktop image on his work computer. I have no idea what photos he is talking about but am quite sure that they would make me squirm in my chair thinking that his coworkers see them daily (the few I don't hate, I can very quickly identify and these I don't recall). I wish all women could see themselves through the eyes of a man (or woman...or just friend - whatever) who truly loves them.
my littel grandaughter is so beautiful. she takes me breath away. love the way she eats up the camera
I have pictures that I love of myself, and ones that I hate, for all the reasons that we usually hate them. The difference isn't really how I look. The difference is that they are taken of me doing something that I love. Nowadays the ones I love are of me and my kids, not usually the posed ones, but ones taken of me doing fun things with the camera. So in my opinion is that she will always love the photo if she loves what she was doing. Its all abot the memories.
It's times like this when I love to share this site that I found
http://operationbeautiful.com/
The person who founded this actually originally from Pittsburgh as well, and it makes it THAT much cooler :-)
I love the message it's trying to send, and hopefully other people see that as well!
It's a choice. There is a photo of me that my mother took my senior year of high school. I hated it. All she kept saying is "you look so happy!" slowly but surely I started to love that photo. I stopped nitpicking and started seeing the happiness my mother saw.
That photo ended up as one of my yearbook photos.
I've stopped caring about how I physically look in photos. So what if my hair is frizzy and i have no cheekbones. I look happy. I look loved. I'm less concerned with perfection in photos now. But it has been a long time coming.
I hate pictures of myself. Hate them. But I forced myself to post the one that is on the front page of my blog right now - the one with my husband and I standing with my 100 year old Grandmother. How could I not? [even if I do look old and fat?] I hope Alexis stays as joyful as she is right now :)