I turn 50 this year in June, and I will be celebrating in Paris.
I will also be in front of the lens of Carla Coulson
and the beauty of this is that she will show me what everyone else has always known
……that I am beautiful and that it is my time to Shine.
Congratulations started coming in, my face book page was beeping all day, and when I saw my name selected I couldn’t believe it.
I turned the camera on to say thank you to Carla Coulson and that was the end of me. It was all just too much, a life changing dream come true, my time to Shine. I almost deleted that little video clip, kept trying to compose myself to make another one without the raw emotion. But in the end I posted it to Carla on my facebook page, the response was overwhelming.
The reason I didn’t delete it is because I never want my daughter to feel like this.
I don’t want her growing up without photos to capture the moments of joy in her life. I want her free and certain and glowing in front of the camera, I want her to always know how beautiful she is both inside and out, good hair days or bad…..make up or no make up, laughing crying and just the way she is. Isn’t that what we all want, to be seen, to be heard, to make a difference.
I still don’t look in mirrors, I haven’t since I was a teenager, especially if anyone else is in the room. I have been known to wait in toilet cubicles until those applying fresh makeup leave the room. I don’t like getting my photo taken, and growing up my Mum would always light the house in the evening with candles and she was careful to sit in the ‘best light’ how funny I had totally forgotten about that until just this moment.
At school and into my early 30’s I had severe cystic acne, I tried everything to make it disappear but in the end I see now that I disappeared a little at a time. In my teens and 20’s I wouldn’t go out if I was having a bad skin day.
Friends and family would greet me with ‘Oh your skin looks better today’ and old ladies would stop me on the street to give me the ‘cure’……my closest friend in high school turned on me (as can happen in school) and her favorite taunt was about my skin, she enrolled the entire school into her chorus (or so it seemed to me).
Actually now I think about it my brother hated getting his photo taken as well and it was a family sport to try to get a photo of him. We have many of him with his hand up to his face or with the finger up, I wonder what his story was. I never thought to ask him and it’s too late now.
I notice that Carina doesn’t give her childish beaming smile when getting her photo taken, she thinks her teeth are too big….when I got my wedding photos I ‘fixed’ them….and on one favorite I even slightly straightened my nose (thanks to the wonder that is photoshop). My Mum rang to thank me for the photos I sent her saying she’d never had such a nice photo of us, she never knew that I tweaked it a little first.
I remember when I was working for a photographer in Melbourne, she took packages at school formals and a Mother came in to her office enraged that she’d ‘taken out’ her son’s acne without asking first. I’ve been guilty of doing this same thing with photos of our children. Carina will think she never had a spot as a baby. We are so lucky to have this chance to put it right with Carla Coulson behind the lens.
How we see ourselves can become complicated!
It’s time to give that story up…..it’s my time to SHINE with the wonderful Carla Coulson
and as always I will be sharing the journey with you x
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