photography, life & everything else

A honest confession.

It is with a sleepy face and tried gaze I can look at the clock and say that it’s 3:53 in the night as I start writing this. But sometimes intruding thoughts don’t leave your mind until you do something about them.

As many know I’m working on a project focused on body image, a project where people share everything so much of themselves both in the way I’m allowed to portrait their nude bodies and in their texts. Each single person who dares take the step out and join in I have a huge amount of respect for, this is not an easy thing to do. Their putting their trust in me to do my job well, to portrait them right and to allow them to look at the portrait afterwards and be happy with the body they say there no glance away in shame.

Personally I think I would be terrified of doing something like this, just the very thought of it makes me heart race and my insecurities pushes themselves to the surface. Thoughts like “not good enough”, “not thin enough”, not pretty enough” are probably the first three on a long list. And as many other girls I have been down the road of both diet and training, and I have been slightly thinner then I am now but a good friend gave me the most honest comment she could have given, it went something like “you have gotten skinny, your spine is more visible then before, I don’t like it.” My whole little world tumbled a little, for some reason those words stung. I was slowly becoming something I didn’t want to be.

Please don’t think I see something wrong with people being on the thin side, it’s just that it isn’t my side. I love the days when I can wake up and look in the mirror and give myself a little approving nod while telling myself that I don’t look that bad, sure I have a little bump on my tummy but my weight is pinpoint on my average for my height, not too thin not too fat just completely normal.

I think I wanted to share this because I feel that I have left a lot of personal thoughts out from my project then I can honestly say I think about it all the time, I feel almost obsessed about making others also see the beauty they have because I can see it so clearly. I want to remove those insecurities, want them to be happy exactly the way they are and perhaps most of all I want a lot of people to change. I want the people of our fashion industry to take a step back and look at the ideal woman they have created, is she really that ideal?

My project has gotten quite positive feedback and my heart swells with happiness each time I get a nice comment either through the blog or other forums, or verbally from a friend. And I hope that some of my models can go to bed at night with a smile on their face and the confidence in the sky knowing that several people told them that they were perfect exactly the way they are. And I… I go to bed at night and smile because I’m so happy I could make someone else feel like that.