But what if I don’t like my boudoir photos?
What if I am awkward? What if I don’t like the way my body looks? What if I don’t like my photos?
I get it. Almost every person I have worked with is nervous and worried that they will be awkward in front of a camera. And that’s okay. It’s okay to be nervous. And it’s okay to feel awkward. For the vast majority of people that I work with, this is their first time having professional photos taken of them. And it’s a scary thing to do that and then add the vulnerable piece of potentially not wearing much (if any) clothing.
But here’s the thing, I think the being uncomfortable is part of the process. I have yet to work with someone who didn’t feel the nerves go away after the first 30 minutes. And I think working through that being uncomfortable, and pushing our comfort zones, is what makes us grow and is part of what makes these types of photoshoots so special. Because you can get to the end and say “holy shit, I did the thing”. And it was glorious.
Which leads me to the next question: What if I don’t like my photos? And I am going to be very real here and say there is a good chance you won’t like every single one of them (but I have a lot of confidence that you will like most of them and I have a pretty large sample size to back that up). And guess what, not liking every one of them is okay! I give you complete permission to have all of the feels about your photos. It’s okay to see one photo and be ecstatic that that is you, and then see another and be uncomfortable about how part of your body looks. And part of why I expect this is that I don’t define a good picture as the one where you look closest to the beauty standard. I define a good photo by composition, light, and emotion. Which means that you may end up with some photos in your gallery that aren’t necessarily the standard definition of “flattering”. But I think that there is a beautiful thing that happens when we sit with the uncomfortable. When we see maybe that thing we don’t like on our body through the eyes of someone else. Because I didn’t see the double chin, or the cellulite, the rolls on your tummy as something that wasn’t beautiful. Instead I saw it as a beautiful part of you. A part that is just as valuable as all the other parts. But it’s okay if you don’t see it that way at first. I just ask each person to see if they can find something in the photo that they do like. Even if it is as small as your right pinky. And I ask each person to give themselves time. Time and time again I have seen people see themselves in a softer light the more time they give themselves with the photos. Sometimes I will even recommend choosing a photo that makes you uncomfortable and to put it away for later. Often, if you go back to it in a year, the thing that you didn’t love, now doesn’t feel so scary.
But Penelope, why the fuck would you tell your clients they won’t like all of there photos? Because I think the idea that we are supposed to love every bit of our bodies all the time is wildly unrealistic. We live in a society where the closer we fit a definition of beauty that is colonialist and patriarchal, the more respect and opportunities we are afforded. And to tell people that they should just love themselves, that it is a personal failing to not, is at the very least naive, and at the worst, quite harmful. And I have no desire to feed into that idea. We cannot possibly work against this issue if we are too busy beating ourselves up about not loving ourselves all the time. So I say again, it’s okay to not love every photo. But I do ask that you take the time to sit with and work through the discomfort. To ask yourself where that discomfort comes from? To maybe get sad that you as a child were told that your body was a problem. And to get royally pissed at a culture that continues to do so.
And if you’re looking for another awesome take on this, try Teri Hoffard’s TedTalk
