People say it all the time, “I wish I was more confident”, or, “I want to build my confidence.” I am bringing it up because “It was a huge confidence boost”, is one of the first things our clients say about their photo session experience with us. We hear it all the time. So you might be asking how an intimate portraiture photoshoot leads to more self-confidence.
Confidence is certainly an admired personal trait, but for women, in particular, that has not always been the case. Our historically patriarchal society has only started to come to terms with the idea that confidence and strength are to be equally admired, irrespective of your gender identity.
As a society, we are bombarded with image stereotypes. We are shown, over and over what is “supposed” to be beautiful or attractive. What is the ideal shape, or size, even age? My clients often tell me before a shoot that they feel like they need to find their beauty again, or they feel like they deserve to feel amazing about themselves. Sometimes they will tell me that their partner or friends tell them that they are pretty, but they look in the mirror and just don’t see it. We almost can’t help but compare ourselves to what we are being told is “ideal.”
Most of us are familiar with filters. You take a selfie and then apply a Snap Chat filter and voila`, you have panda ears and a voice that sounds like a cartoon. The filter takes what is there and modifies it based on some parameters. In reality, even without Snap Chat, we all see ourselves through a filter. It is shaped by our experiences, hope, fears, insecurities and a lifetime of self-image baggage. As a photographer, I get to present you with a view that your mirror can never provide. One that is not only a physically different view, but you see yourself through my filter. I can’t begin to count the number of times I’ve heard a client say that they now see what other people have been seeing. I believe it is because they are allowing themselves to remove their filter and borrow ours for a bit, and is a transforming experience.
Being confident has many facets. For example, you can be confident in your work, in the way you speak, your knowledge of a subject, or how you look. I think something fascinating, is how any one of those can directly affect the others. Let’s say you are going to give a speech in front of a group. You might know the subject cold and have a great speaking presence; but, if you are feeling like your hair is a mess or your clothes are disheveled, that can have a profound effect on your confidence level for the speech. I think that is part of why the confidence clients get from an intimate portraiture session has such a profound effect. If you are confident that you look awesome, have every right to feel that way, AND you believe it, it helps to build all the other confidences.
Changing your filter and getting a glimpse of what the world looks like through someone else’s, is what is so transformative and powerful about photography. When the subject you are seeing in that way is you, that can begin a paradigm shift that you may have never imagined that pictures in your underwear could have made.
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