Show Up
I often talk to clients about how important it is to show up in photos. I tell Mums that they need to be in photos for their kids’ memories and female entrepreneurs to present themselves authentically to grow their businesses. As my business is mainly women based, I spend a lot of time allaying fears about appearance and self-consciousness about being photographed. As such, I’m passionate about helping women feel fantastic in photos. I think it is so hard to do when we bash ourselves so often and I have spent the last few years seeing if I could alter my own mindset around how I feel about my appearance.
My Story
A bit of background to how I arrived at this point… Five and a half years ago, I had my son and was bombarded with messages about how to get my body ‘back’, all of which piled more stress on me at a time when I was already navigating massive life changes. Even before that, I felt endless pressure to have a ‘bikini body’, lose weight, bash on myself in public (because otherwise you don’t really fit into female conversations, right?!). And since becoming a parent, I’ve found a whole load of different pressures as I’ve started to go grey (I came late to that party as I only found my first grey at 36), have no inclination to use my precious ‘alone time’ for makeup or hair-straightening and surviving on less sleep than I thought possible!
Keeping Up With The...
I was increasingly coming to resent the media for giving me a laundry list of should's and should nots long before having a family, however. Always one for being a bit contrary, I find being told how I should think and feel usually makes me do the opposite! However, as hard as you try and make yourself immune to it, being bombarded with images of photoshopped perfection, thigh gaps and wrinkle-free faces, you can’t help but feel like you don’t measure up. And just in case the message hasn’t reached you yet…these women (and men) are all Photoshopped AF.
This assault from the media and subsequent ‘comparisonitis’ to an unrealistic ideal of beauty starts from a ridiculously young age without us having any control over it. By the time we’re self-aware enough to realise it and start questioning it, the damage is done. It’s then near impossible to make ourselves immune from subconsciously feeling like cr@p every time we pass a billboard or shiny magazine ad.
Why Photography?
All this led me to a challenge I started. I read a lot of studies about how the self-esteem of children grows when seeing their photos around the home. And I got to thinking, the same must, therefore, be true of adults? I realise the photos that most of us live with on our walls are the filtered version of our lives. It’s the special-occasion, make up & fancy clothes, ‘best’ version of ourselves that we frame. I’d guess you don’t have a photo of yourself in your PJs on your wall?
So, that’s exactly what I did. I started putting up the very ordinary photos of my life. The photos of me in my PJs with my son, with no makeup. I won’t lie to you; it was hideous at first. I shuddered every time I walked past them. I ripped myself apart about how awful I looked. And I wrote a whole blog about how ghastly I look in photos but how I was trying to do better to exist in photos for my son.
Self-acceptance
Over time, though, a funny thing started to happen. I became gradually more comfortable with the way I looked. I accepted my everyday self. And then slowly I started looking at those photos and noticed all the other awesome things in them like how happy I look and how much I seem to be enjoying my life. I stopped noticing the superficial nonsense and began tearing myself apart less. When I look back on the whole year, I realise my inner monologue is also a little quieter and a lot kinder too. And for me (who is absolutely brutal to myself!) that is a massive step.
I ended my (very personal until that point!) challenge with stripping naked and posting a photo on social media! Talking to my friend she was shocked that I would to do such a thing. However, the feelings I had when posting the first blog post, fully clothed photo with make-up on, and the naked one with no makeup are poles apart. I’ve lost no weight, I’ve gained grey hair, look older - yet I’m happier in my body than I was a year previously. Isn’t life funny life that? I credit all that to the power of seeing myself in photos and getting used to how I actually look (the real me, not the special occasion me). When I was telling her about it, she started doing this slow nod and said, “that’s a good point. I have two photos in my hallway… one is my wedding day, the other is on holiday in my early 20s. I’m so slim and young in both. Every day I look at them and feel like cr@p that I’ll never look like that again”.
So, I’d like to challenge you…
Put up a photo of yourself. Don’t overthink it. Just pick a regular photo. Hang it on the fridge or the bathroom mirror. Say something nice to photo you every day, or at least get used to looking at the real you. Get used to your body just being the vessel you inhabit to enjoy your awesome life, rather than something else you feel you need to expend energy hating or insulting. Remember that 10-year challenge that did the round on social media? In ten years, you’ll be looking back at 2022 you and thinking how thin/pretty/young/happy you look. Don’t wait for a decade to pass to find those feelings; embrace that gratitude for yourself now. If you struggle with that for yourself specifically, try thinking about gratitude for ageing in general, this is where I started. Many people don’t get the privilege of growing old and gaining grey hair or having enough to eat to gain a few extra pounds.
Gradually you’ll start to accept yourself and then like yourself. Maybe you’ll even end up loving yourself. And all thanks to a little 6x4. Wouldn’t that be magical?
About Tori
Tori Deslauriers is a photographer obsessed with getting women back in the frame and helping them feel empowered in front of the camera. You can find me at www.torideslauriers.com photographing weddings, Supermums and amazing small businesses.
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