Shoot

Adam and I spent last Thursday afternoon and into the evening engaged in a photo shoot for Delicately Off-Balance.¹ It was a lot of fun, we had a great time working with the makeup artist and the photographer,² we ended the day dizzy with anticipation for the pictures, and even now, days later, we are exhausted.

“My neck is stiff from staring at you.”

-Adam

The day after our shoot was our 11^th wedding anniversary. We decided to celebrate by not doing anything terribly strenuous.

I wanted to talk about some of the feelings leading up to the shoot. Because although we really enjoyed the actual activity of getting photos taken,³ there was a lot to think about before we got there.

Neither of us is a person who particularly enjoys being in photos, to start with. As a child, I actually did like having my picture taken, often in this odd pose I favoured with my skirt⁴ held out to the sides and one toe pointed towards the front, until I didn’t. Adam says he used to too, with “the biggest, ridiculousest smile I ever had,” until he stopped enjoying it as well.

I haven’t surveyed very many people, so I’m not going to try to speak for anyone else. But for myself, as I grew up, pictures of me stopped matching up to the me in my head. Looking at them became a reminder of how other people see me, which across my lifespan has rarely been the way I see myself.

A picture of me now, especially if I’m not the only one in it, is often a harsh reminder that no matter how much I try to hold myself in a small, unobtrusive way, I am a woman who is 5’10” and a lot of pounds heavier than a lot of people seem to think I have any right to be. My hair, though it sometimes flashes golden in the sunlight, is not the pinky blonde of my childhood.⁵ My face, no matter how hard I try to wear normal-but-carefully-nuanced facial expressions, looks like, at best, a vaguely interestingly shaped potato (video calls are actually the worst for drawing my attention to this). My clothes never seem to work as well as I thought they did when I picked them, and my posture, if I’m not paying very close attention to it, does not befit a singer.

I was worried about the photo shoot. I cycled through choices of outfits; who did I want to try to portray myself as? I tried to figure out what to do with my hair,⁶ getting it cut by someone completely unfamiliar to me (but nice, and good at her job) because my usual stylist was on maternity leave, and carefully practicing how I styled it at home so I could be sure to do it the same way I normally did. I vacillated about makeup and finally decided I needed a professional for that – turned out to be an excellent choice, as I ended up looking very much like myself, but… elevated. And I thought hopelessly about poses and facial expressions before eventually deciding to leave those completely in the hands of the photographer.

Then Thursday came, and it turned out that “leave those completely in the hands of the photographer” was the right choice, and one of few things I did relating to this that actually saved me some angst.

She is good at her job.

Adam and I were both shocked at how good we felt about the shoot. We two, we anxious, uncertain, self-loathing two, had such a blast. And, bonus, the pictures look amazing. We ended up spending most of our 11^thanniversary doing something strenuous after all, at least mentally: scouring the hundreds we had to choose from and trying to narrow it down. It was excruciating. There are so many beautiful pictures and we kept eliminating them only to look at them again and say “But…”

So, what did we learn? Nothing we didn’t already know, but it’s good to have it hammered home once in a while. Photography is an art. The application of makeup is an art. And while just about anyone can engage in an art, there are always going to be those few who have a special talent, who choose to put in the time and effort to hone their skills, and who are available to employ⁸ when it turns out that you need a specialist’s touch.

In other words, there are some people can see you for who you are and show the best side of you to the rest of the world. Find them.

We cannot wait to share some of the results of this photo session with you. It’s really something else to look at a photo and actually see yourself looking back.

—

¹ Expect to see new pictures up on the website before too too long!

² Both awesome.

³ Which itself is a credit to the photographer.

⁴ I pretty much wore dresses until the school said I needed pants for gym.

⁵ Likely because I don’t get much of that sunlight these days.

⁶ I ended up BUYING a hair dryer with a diffuser⁷ the WEEK OF because I was suddenly afraid I wouldn’t have time to air-dry my hair.

⁷ A first for me, who has never had the energy to do anything but air-dry.

⁸ Exposure will never pay bills.