02/01/2026
Girlhood - 1st Jan, 2026
When I was growing up, people would always tell me that I needed to be a model, or a mannequin. I was tall for my age and skinny - two of the most important ingredients of being a model, I guess.
People planted seeds in my naïve mind. Seeds of expectations. I was told this so often that I truly believed there couldn’t be anything else in my future - just me and a modelling career. Flashing lights and editorial shots, runways and expensive brands, my face printed on larger-than-life canvases, secured onto the empty side of a block of flats, ten storeys high or more. Becoming a model was going to be my lottery ticket in life, my one-way ticket to happiness.
And then the realisation hit when I was thirteen: I was not going to be a model. I didn’t have what it takes. I was already too old to be scouted. I didn’t even live near people who scout models - and the ones who came to my little town claiming they would were scammers anyway.
And yet, I still tried. I hoped. I dragged my mum and brother to these scammers. I cried and cried when I was told that we didn’t have the money that would open the door to my big dream. Me fulfilling my purpose.
Now, I take my own photos. I bring my own definition of being a model to life.
This one is about girlhood. About not feeling pretty enough without makeup - or, at the same time, feeling the prettiest with it on. About the very human urge to capture something beautiful, to make it last forever.
There’s more to these photos. They are flawed, just like we all are. But they are beautiful too - just as we all are.
VS
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