Photographic Catharsis
Before I started modelling, I felt about as attractive as the Hunchback of Notre Dame. As many of you know, I have completed the herculean task of twelve years of breastfeeding, which doesn't leave you with the pertest mammaries in the world. I have also had brain cancer, which caused facial paralysis, and I’ve had approximately twelve operations in my life (I stopped counting a while ago). All in all, life has left me battle-scarred and with an extremely low self esteem. Two years ago, I used to hide from everyone if I could, and I rarely went out.
The Docs don’t offer you psychiatric counselling for facial disfigurement in this country, or at least they didn’t seven years ago after my brain tumour operation. My neurosurgeon said “You’re lucky to be alive” and that’s about it. This is supposed to be enough for you. Being atttractive isn’t supposed to be part of the equation.
I have known many other women and men with facial disfigurement caused by brain tumours, whose partners left them as a result of the operation. They simply weren’t beautiful enough. And of course there is the immense psychological scarring that goes with that sort of life trauma, plus all the other physical and mental side effects which I won’t bore you with here (mainly fatigue, mood swings and so forth). Living with a person who has had cancer is challenging to say the least. I am honoured that my partner is still with me, and I am particularly lucky that he chose to take up photography and pick me as his main model.
When Rich first started photographing figure studies, I felt understandably threatened. Feeling like the ugliest woman on the planet made it especially hard when meeting these pretty young models. Initially I felt confused, inadequate, old and ugly. I thought Rich was shooting these women because he found me unattractive and a burden, and he wanted to shoot perfect youth and beauty for a change. I thought I was merely a duty to him, and that he was looking for a real life elsewhere.
And then I realised, over the next year, that in fact he saw me as beautiful and sexy as these gorgeous nineteen year old models. Because I watched him, talked to him, because of what we shared, I gradually learned to see myself through his eyes. Because he photographed me in exactly the same way as those younger women, because he told me how beautiful I was, told me I was a better model than some of them, because he encouraged me to meet and shoot with others (and they in turn didn’t treat me like a freak, just as a normal model when I met them), something amazing happened.
Over time I started to heal. Not physically of course, but psychologically. I felt beautiful again. I learned to hold my head up high and celebrate life. To non-photographic members of the public who continued to react like I was a circus freak, I finally understood how they felt, and I realised that they were not being deliberately cruel, but they were just frightened of the same thing happening to them. They were just scared.
A talented photographer will capture a person’s essence rather than merely a body. He will be interested in the person inside the body. It is the mind that makes the body beautiful. When someone takes their clothes off, they remove everything they hide behind. All the fashionista style and makeup is gone. You are just left with the real person, who often feels psychologically exposed because he or she no longer has a mask to hide behind.
In the hands of a talented and sensitive photographer, this exposure of the raw psyche through the use of nude photography can be used as a healing process. A nude photography session can be very therapeutic, and can massively increase your self-worth. It's a way of purging things inside of you, and helping you find your inner strength.
Finding the courage to make an exhibit of yourself in front of the camera in a safe environment really emphasises your self-awareness and is a liberating experience. The shoot itself and the way you are treated by the photographer is just as important as the finished images, maybe more so.
This type of therapeutic photography helps deal with negative body image, body issues, low self-esteem and lack in self-confidence. Used correctly, it is a healing practice, a way of learning to love yourself and recognise yourself as really beautiful, not despite all your flaws, but because of them.
The Docs don’t offer you psychiatric counselling for facial disfigurement in this country, or at least they didn’t seven years ago after my brain tumour operation. My neurosurgeon said “You’re lucky to be alive” and that’s about it. This is supposed to be enough for you. Being atttractive isn’t supposed to be part of the equation.
I have known many other women and men with facial disfigurement caused by brain tumours, whose partners left them as a result of the operation. They simply weren’t beautiful enough. And of course there is the immense psychological scarring that goes with that sort of life trauma, plus all the other physical and mental side effects which I won’t bore you with here (mainly fatigue, mood swings and so forth). Living with a person who has had cancer is challenging to say the least. I am honoured that my partner is still with me, and I am particularly lucky that he chose to take up photography and pick me as his main model.
When Rich first started photographing figure studies, I felt understandably threatened. Feeling like the ugliest woman on the planet made it especially hard when meeting these pretty young models. Initially I felt confused, inadequate, old and ugly. I thought Rich was shooting these women because he found me unattractive and a burden, and he wanted to shoot perfect youth and beauty for a change. I thought I was merely a duty to him, and that he was looking for a real life elsewhere.
And then I realised, over the next year, that in fact he saw me as beautiful and sexy as these gorgeous nineteen year old models. Because I watched him, talked to him, because of what we shared, I gradually learned to see myself through his eyes. Because he photographed me in exactly the same way as those younger women, because he told me how beautiful I was, told me I was a better model than some of them, because he encouraged me to meet and shoot with others (and they in turn didn’t treat me like a freak, just as a normal model when I met them), something amazing happened.
Over time I started to heal. Not physically of course, but psychologically. I felt beautiful again. I learned to hold my head up high and celebrate life. To non-photographic members of the public who continued to react like I was a circus freak, I finally understood how they felt, and I realised that they were not being deliberately cruel, but they were just frightened of the same thing happening to them. They were just scared.
A talented photographer will capture a person’s essence rather than merely a body. He will be interested in the person inside the body. It is the mind that makes the body beautiful. When someone takes their clothes off, they remove everything they hide behind. All the fashionista style and makeup is gone. You are just left with the real person, who often feels psychologically exposed because he or she no longer has a mask to hide behind.
In the hands of a talented and sensitive photographer, this exposure of the raw psyche through the use of nude photography can be used as a healing process. A nude photography session can be very therapeutic, and can massively increase your self-worth. It's a way of purging things inside of you, and helping you find your inner strength.
Finding the courage to make an exhibit of yourself in front of the camera in a safe environment really emphasises your self-awareness and is a liberating experience. The shoot itself and the way you are treated by the photographer is just as important as the finished images, maybe more so.
This type of therapeutic photography helps deal with negative body image, body issues, low self-esteem and lack in self-confidence. Used correctly, it is a healing practice, a way of learning to love yourself and recognise yourself as really beautiful, not despite all your flaws, but because of them.
Labels: L-von-B
posted by Lin at 2:28 PM
4 Comments:
Well spoken, Lin. I've had a few shoots where I've felt the model/subject was working through their body issues or personal repression or other matters, and have transformed during the course of a shoot (or several shoots). I always enjoy the ones who were timid to do their first nudes, go through the liberating experience of the nude shoot, see the results, then afterwards can't wait to take their clothes off and shoot again!
Lin - this is so wonderfully explained!! Thank you for sharing this story.
I shy away from photographers who demand to shoot the "perfect" model. I respect and admire photographers who seek out subjects of all age groups, all shapes, all sizes, and those who respect their models for the things and body traits that make them uniquely THEM. It tells me they are looking for more than just that body or face, which to me is very important, because as you say, there is so much more to an image than just the physical beauty.
Lin, well spoken, Rolando over at Glamour1 also talks about the therapy of photography.
You are so beautiful. That's all I have to say!
a
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