What Power in a Portrait?
This is my “mama belly, I love you, and I’m so sorry for everything you’ve been though” portrait.
It’s a nice thought - that we can radically change our self image with a portrait image - but is it real?
Yeah, it’s real. It’s happened for me. It’s still happening. I have experienced the transformational power of photographs in healing physical injury, generational trauma and intense stress.
In the first portrait on this page, I was very intentionally loving on parts of my body that were seriously injured during midwife malpractice in my two kids’ births. I’d been through the initial injuries, repair surgery, a long period of mental disconnection from that entire region of my body (it’s a thing), and the GI effects of LongCovid. Me and my mama belly had wracked up some history!
I shot that photo oh, about a year ago. Now I’m wearing tight, short T shirts (ask my daughter; that’s News). It’s a process, but that photo was a big catalyst for that healing.
Fittingly, that’s my mom’s makeup mirror.
By photographing the portrait above, I was effectively talking back to voices from my upbringing that I no longer want to have a say in how I look at myself. This image began to replace those unlovely voices in times they would usually chime in. It was pretty magical.
This is my “you are a badass, own it” photo.
This last portrait held me up in a time when, over that year, I had spent over $7,000 more than my household made in that entire year on medical expenses ($58K vs. $51K - but yeah, Rump, no one on Social Security really needs it). The debt was crippling, the stress from carrying it waking me up well before dawn every morning. I looked at this photo, taken in the same time, and said, “Damn girl, you are doing this.”
(By the way, if you, too, have found yourself in the GoFundMe (institutionalized begging) this-is-why-we-need-universal-healthcare set: Run, don’t walk, to bankruptcy attorney Ryan Hackett. Highly recommend).
In all three of these self-portrait experiences, I didn’t need luxury snack service or extraneous … anything, really. Those things are always nice, but honestly, I just needed to be photographed by someone who cared, even it was my own self.
I look at our national leadership right now, featuring themselves in high-contrast, doctored photographs that look straight out of a campy “these nuts would never actually gain power in the U.S.” movie. If only we could get them alone in a room individually long enough to address their Stuff … love on themselves, instead of distracting themselves by hating on all of us! But, I digress.
In my clients, I’ve seen portraits help heal unlovely self image caused by body dysmorphia after illness or injury, various traumas, skewed societal views surrounding aging and much more.
Try it for yourself, whether it’s with me, another photographer who’s caught your eye, or yourself with your cell phone.
Portraits are powerful.