At 7am bright and early this morning, my family had our pictures taken by a local photography company here in Abilene. The last time we had professional pictures taken was for Calvin’s newborn session (he just turned 2 a few weeks ago) so it has been a while!

While I am super excited to get some new family pictures,  I am also a bit anxious about them. Three of my recent posts have been about body image and the struggle I have had with feeling beautiful enough. Well, pictures are not the funnest thing for a person who doesn’t like their appearance much of the time!

I was trying to explain to my husband what it’s like to get my picture taken. I explained it as follows:

“It’s kind of a mixture of fear and dread. I have no idea what I’m going to see when I look at the screen (referring to having my photo taken on a phone). Sometimes I might see this cute person that I recognize from looking at myself in the mirror, but sometimes I see this completely different person, a horribly disfigured version of myself that I didn’t know existed. So there’s always a fear of looking at a photo of myself, because I never know which person I’m going to see.” 

Does anyone else sympathize with that? I know it’s not just me. Even in the past few days I have heard from others the negative experience that comes from having their picture taken:

“I think the problem is that the picture always ends up looking like me.” (said jokingly…)

“I hate getting that done, but I guess we’ll have to.” (referring to getting pictures taken for an ‘About Me’ page on a professional blog)

Read More »