12/15/2022
A request to all women this holiday season, from your family and friends.
If your kids are anything like mine, they loved looking at family photos when they were little. My daughter still does and keeps asking me to look at photos when she visits, but theyāre in various places and not easily accessible. This is something I will remedy in the new year, so when she visits, we can. My son doesnāt care quite as much anymore. He is 19 and focused on his own life. But when it matters again, I will be sure he can.
One thing I know is that Iām not in many of those photos. I have photos of myself as a child. A few, but not many. I have photos of my daughter, many snapshots, some studio and school photos. I have a ton of my son once he was born, and both kids after that.
Itās at that point I became a professional photographer.
The photography industry was growing like wildfire when I entered it. Professional level digital cameras became affordable for the masses. I was a graphic designer, and Photoshop geek. I was all in!
I took photos whenever I could. Of my kids, animals, leaves and sunset. Anything and everything. But I was rarely in them.
Time passed; kids grew. The beautiful collection of professional photos I have of my kids grew and grew even faster than they did. Birthdays, vacations, holidays, the annual fall photos of both of them. I was behind the camera creating beautiful memories and art that filled my soul, my walls and my hard drive.
But what about their memories? What will they have to look back on when I am gone?
Iām 55 years old. I fully embrace technology, photography, and social media. I think things are changing and younger generations are in more photos than past generations. At least I hope so.
My daughter once told me sheās fine being in photos. She just didnāt want them to be posed and fussy. She wanted real photos, snapshots. She even told me once she wanted a photo of her and I, just a regular photo. That is etched on my soul to this day. I realized I was doing it all wrong. For some of us photographers, thatās a hard one. We love to pose people. We love to make sure the lighting is perfect. Itās so hard for us to be ok with memories being created on a phone. We want to create art from our family memories.
Weāre artists. Our life is fueled by creating beauty. We are driven by sharing what we see with others. The beauty of the world, of family, of a new baby, of a sunset. We want everyone to see what we see. We pour our very heart and soul into it.
Yet, many of us fall short. Those of us that arenāt photographers still arenāt in photos as much as we should be. Women are the memory keepers, the memory creators. Dads can be, too. But it seems to me that women, much more than men, struggle historically with how they look in photos. I still see it today, even with younger generations. Many social media platforms revolve around photos and video. Thereās a lot more sharing, which has good and bad points. I wonāt go into all the issues with filters, and comparing ourselves to others, all the influencers that use filters to alter their photos, which projects an unrealistic vision of what women āshouldā look like. I see things shifting in the advertising space, more real women, less editing. I am hopeful for the future.
But I am getting off track. Circling back to my previous point, moms are not in photos enough. Or sometimes at all.
Momās, young and old, you need to be in photos. By yourself, with your kids, with your grandkids, with your family. Many of you, including me, feel we hate seeing ourselves in photos.
Why?
It could be for any number of reasons. It could be our weight, our eyes, or our teeth, or our hair. Or it could be because that bully in 6th grade called us four eyes. It can stem from what the media showed us growing up, programming us to believe we needed to look a certain way. It could be our mother telling us at 30 that she was disappointed in us because we had let ourselves go even though we were only a size 14 (that was my mom, yup). Or maybe weāre not caught up in any of that and weāre just busy. We have a phone, and we think our kids are so cute. We snap photos of them every single day.
Whatever the reason, moms who are not in photos, you need to be. I hear you. Iām you. Iām fluffy. I have big lips. I have a huge face. I have crazy hair. Yes, this is what I think when I look in the mirror or see myself in a photo.
I wonāt get into the fact that you are worthy, you are perfect as you are; you are enough; you are beautiful (you are). We all hear it. But for whatever reason, there are many women who do not appear in photos. It could be photographer syndrome for some of my peeps. Just being too busy taking the photos to be in them. Or it could be we really donāt like what we see when we see ourselves in photos.
But whatever the reason, there are people that will want to see us in photos.
I want to share a piece of wisdom I heard a while ago. When we see ourselves in a mirror or in a photo, we are seeing ourselves through a totally different lens than everyone else. Do you see what I did there? ;)
But seriously, itās true.
We bring all our programming with us, all our experiences, when we look at ourselves in a mirror or in a photo.
We think others see us the same way we see ourselves.
Newsflash: They donāt.
Why? Because they do not possess the same experiences, memories, and feelings about us that we have about ourselves.
Mic drop, right? Itās true.
How we perceive things, who we are, is because of our experiences. Our beliefs. Our programming. The same is true for everyone.
Do you ever remember someone saying something negative about themselves, but you just didnāt see it? You didnāt think anything even close to that? Thatās proof right there.
No one sees you the same way you see yourself.
Your children see you as mom. They adore you. They see you through eyes of love, the feelings they remember from the experiences they share with you. They donāt notice one eye is not exactly the same as the other, or that your eyebrows were not plucked to perfection, or that your lips are thin or plump. They see their mom. And they see love.
When you sit down to look through old family photos, do you think about how grandma could have lost a few pounds? Do you say to yourself, mom could have brushed her hair that morning? I donāt think so.
You think about the memories and the emotions. Not how the person looked.
Your kids deserve that.
Join me in making sure you are in more photos. Professional or snapshots, it doesnāt matter. It doesn't matter how old you are, it's never to early or too late to start. Iām doing this. When I get together with my daughter, I try to make sure we take more selfies together. Itās hard for me, but I do it. Iām totally awkward with it (she can verify), but itās important. Itās also a part of the lesson of learning to love myself. Iām also going to print them.
She once asked me to be in a photo with her. I owe that to her many times over. Iām working on it. š
