You are more than a wife, a mom, a caregiver, an employee.
You are also someone who is also loved and cherished by others, who works hard for your family and friends, and someone who needs to be seen.
When my daughter was in Kindergarten, they had each kid be the “Star of the Week”. If you were “SOTW”, you got to make your own poster of yourself.
My kid put up photos of herself with her friends, with her dad, at Disneyland, at her birthday, with the CATS. I looked at it and said to her “How come there are no photos with mommy?” Because, of course, I was the one taking most of the photos. But I was annoyed. I’m still annoyed by it thinking about it now. This made me realize I had to get IN FRONT of the camera. But I wanted a really great shot of myself, not just some dumb snapshot.
I thought, in my fantasy, who would I want to photograph me? Well of course, it would be Sue Bryce. But she’s a really famous photographer, how is that going to happen?
Strangely enough, an opportunity to shoot with Sue came up, and I jumped on it. She was looking for women over 50 to photograph. Heck, I was over 50! And I was really happy to be over 50 at that moment! So I flew up to Seattle to have a shoot with her. It was an amazing experience, and the images were incredible. I will treasure them forever. And it made me feel really great about myself, especially on days when I’m just hanging out in my sweats with no makeup on. It’s like I have a secret identity of a fabulous person inside!
It doesn’t matter if you are over 40, over 50, overweight, over tired, or just over everything. You need to be photographed. Your family needs you to be photographed. It will change the way you see yourself.