WHEN DO LITTLE GIRLS STOP BELIEVING?

I have been working in the photographic industry in one form or another for about 31 years now.  Over that period of time, I've photographed literally thousands of women.  Now that I have begun to specialize in Modern Glamour Photography, I begin every session with two questions.

1) What do you consider to be your best features?
and
2) What most concerns you about being photographed today?

90% of the time, the answer to the first question is "My eyes".  The other 10% is a mixture of "My hair and my smile".

The answers I get to the second question are a mixture of things mostly connected to size of one or the other of their body parts, ie. my enormous butt, my big stomach, my flabby arms, my thunder thighs, my old hands, my saggy breasts, and other various things like wrinkles, freckles and age spots.  The list goes on and on.

You know... I get it.  I'm a woman too and I truly understand each and every one of those answers and I truly respect the honesty in which my clients give them to me.  Women often times see themselves much differently than others see them.  I take these admissions very seriously in my work because I know ahead of time, which areas of her to feature and which areas to creatively camouflage.  I've learned that no matter how much you or I like a photo of another woman, if SHE doesn't like it, it's a bad photo.  Trust me, I have exactly the same issues as each one of you.  But it makes me wonder.  When did little girls stop believing that they were beautiful?  

If you ask a four year old girl which parts of her are beautiful you will get answers like, "my eyes, my hair, my tummy, my legs, my hands, my mouth, my elbows, my feet, my nose, my fingers, my toenails, my EVERYTHING!"

So, somewhere between the ages of about 4 and 14, our little girls stop believing that they are beautiful human beings.  Why?  Do we stop telling them that they are pretty?  Do they see so many pencil thin models adorning the covers of the fashion magazines that they try to impossibly measure up?  Are they just lacking in a totally different area in their lives like love, acceptance, trust, praise, emotional support or family stability?  I don't know the answers.  I'm sure it's a combination of things.  All I know is, we need to cherish our girls and tell them they are beautiful inside and out.  Teach them to celebrate their uniqueness and individuality.  Teach them to accept themselves and the best way to do this is to learn to love yourself as an adult woman, learn to celebrate your own uniqueness, learn to accept what you PERCEIVE to be your own faults.  Because in doing so, your daughters will learn to do the same.

Now go kiss your little ones and tell them they are beautiful.  :o)

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