You Are About To See Photos I’ve Never Shown

[Of me]

In 2019 I came across this photographer on instagram who did extreme photoshopping, but beautiful work and I thought it would be a fun experiment to see how someone who take me and retouch me to their standards. You would think that’s why these photos haven’t seen the light of day, but actually it has far less to do with the images than it does with the photoshoot experience.

I’m not going to go into all the details, but let’s just say red flags were popping up all over the place, from lack of communication, to mismanaged time (the photographers were 1.5 hours late!), to having me photograph them because they had just gotten engaged - all while I had paid for this service. But as you recently read, I’m not the kind to say No. Interestingly enough, I was in Boston for a workshop and this is where the photoshoot was taking place and so the entire experience gave me great fodder to educate my attendees on the importance of clear communication, managing clients’ anxieties before they pop up, and of course….being on time.

I wanted to share this story with you for a few reason:

1)Photographs hold so much more than just the factual image that we see in front of us - the photograph holds the energy of an experience whether good, bad, empowering, disempowering, frustrating or joyful. When we look at photos many times the things we THINK is us disliking ourselves in the images, is sometimes just the mood, experience or people we were around when the photo was taken. I can’t look at photos of myself on my Norway cruise - not because the cruise was terrible, but because I was incredibly depressed.

2)How we react to things that frustrate us can inform us about ourselves - never once did I disparage the photographer’s name who gave me this lackluster experience, instead I simply didn’t share the images. At first I was pissed that I couldn’t share the photos because in the event people liked them I didn’t want people to have the same experience I did AND I didn’t want to shit talk anyone - it was easier just to keep them secret. I am sharing these with you now because this feels like a safer space to do so and enough time has passed that it’s just another learning lesson.

3)Sometimes we invest in things financially and with our time and our expectations will get dashed - but you will still learn something from it. As mentioned above, I talk about that experience in a lot of my education for photographers because it showed me possible blind spots that folks might have. While the photo investment may have been risky, the experience was beneficial to my overall expertise. But again, that might be a testament to how I was raised - to look for the good in the bad and not dwell on what has been, instead look to change what could be.

4)Just because we find things easy going, doesn’t mean other people will - I am a relatively easy going, laid back kinda gal but even I was on edge with the lack of communication and expectations. It reminded me that people see the world through all different lenses - perhaps they were just really chill and honestly didn’t think being an hour and a half late without communication would be a problem, or maybe they felt super bad, I don’t know - all I know is just because I would have handled it differently doesn’t mean that everyone does. As I usually say: “I can have compassion for why they were the way they are, but I don’t have to put up with it.”

Now, let’s talk about how it felt seeing myself photoshopped to shit:

It’s wild - these images resemble me, but I know that they definitely aren’t me and it was this experience that made me really look at why I was photoshopping to begin with. Like, I look like a plastic doll in these images - which is an aesthetic and it is in line with the photographer’s work - but it is still very weird to see myself in that way.

I think there was part of it that I didn’t want to share in case people would want to have the glossy experience and I didn’t want to deliver it to them. That being said, there’s nothing wrong with wanting it - I just didn’t want people to think that that is something that I personally would deliver so it made it easier to keep these images on the DL.

So, without further adieu, here are some photos of me that have literally never seen the light of day nor the eyes of anyone aside from me and the photographer: