Miss J

October 2019

"Nothing makes a woman more beautiful than the belief that she is beautiful." - Sophia Loren

A hot-button topic that a lot boudoir photographers come across is body positivity. Loving yourself as you are, despite your weight, shape, etc. And I'm all for that, most definitely. Your physical body is beautiful in it's own unique way. Sometimes, however, I feel like that mindset sometimes doesn't take into account the fact that it's also okay to want to make changes for yourself as well. It is COMPLETELY okay to want to make physical changes about yourself. The reasons are vast and depend entirely on the individual whose the body belongs to, but an encouraging movement away from the focusing on JUST the body and looking more at the person as a whole.

I've been hearing a lot more about body neutrality instead. That is the idea of  recognizing the body's abilities and NON-physical characteristics over appearance. Our bodies are absolutely stupendous in the amount of things they can do. And just like our bodies can reshaped physically, we may need to work on reshaping our minds to that idea. It's not what you look like, it's what you can do, what you feel, what you want, that matters. 

Being a visual person (and honestly, as a species, we are all pretty visually inclined), I will always look for the beautiful in that which is in front of me. That's what boudoir is at its essence: Finding that beauty no matter the subject in front of the camera. I even ask my clients what is one feature that they love most about themselves. A lot of times I hear they like their butts (whoop!), or their eyes (that's me too!), but occasionally someone will tell me that they love their kindness or their ability to care for those around them. Learning to love yourself isn't always about loving what you see in the mirror; not always about seeing yourself for your best features or your imperfections. But instead it's realizing that we all have flaws and we all have strengths. It's instead focusing on making yourself feel amazing despite those things, good AND bad. It's instead saying that appearance is part of me, but it isn't ALL of me.

So even if it's hard for you to focus on what your body can do over what it looks like, remember, BOTH of those things are beauty. We all have it, even if it's not visible on the surface. Once and awhile, step back and focus on what you can DO/FEEL/THINK over what you look like. Feeling beautiful for all your traits shows on the outside too. And I think with that idea in mind, we'll all learn to love ourselves just a little bit more.

And because we can't have a blog without some fabulous photos, here's a girl who KNOWS she's beautiful (and in more ways than one!).