How photographing 1000 women changes me.
My goal is to photograph 1000 women for this project.
I closed 2019 by having 109 women photographed.
As the end of 2019 was approaching, and I was getting closer to photographing 100 women, I had been asked by a few people “How has working on this project changed you?”.
My initial answer was “it hasn’t.”
I began to think about that, has it changed me?
The experiences I have had going through this process, the people I have met, the things they have shared with me, my desire to do a good job for those vulnerable women, and why it is so important to me, to support and encourage them.
What comes up for me about my beliefs, how I feel, and how I experience the sessions, how I have captured the change I have seen in the women, and how that affects me. What I didn’t expect or what stands out to me, all great questions that I plan to delve into throughout this journey from this point forward.
My photography journey began slowly until I came across a photographer who would help me to change that. Her name is Sue Bryce, and she became my mentor. I joined her workshops, online classes, became a member of her education program and follow her model. She has been a blessing to me and my journey. In the Spring of 2018, she had Joyce Tenneson as a speaker at an event. Joyce shared her latest project she worked on and a new exhibit that was due to open, showcasing her previous project. She closed her talk by encouraging us to start our own project, she told us it keeps the creative juices flowing.
I loved that!
I began to think “what kind of project could I work on?”
I wanted the project to help me master my skills, impact and encourage women, and to be completely honest I needed to be meeting more people to get my name out there as a photographer.
So, what should I do?
I began to think about the people, more specifically the women, I have encountered while I was building my portfolio or just telling someone I was a photographer, I received numerous reasons why someone didn’t want to be photographed. I had also begun to here other photographers say the same things, including my mentor. Most people do not feel photogenic. It comes down to this, they do not like how they look in the images they see of themselves.
Most of us don’t cut our own hair or sew our own clothes because we wouldn’t like the end result, so we go to someone who has trained in that area to get the best results, so we look our best.
Around that same time, I saw a Dove Campaign called Real Beauty Sketches. https://www.dove.com/us/en/stories/campaigns/real-beauty-sketches.html
This video really moved me, our perception of ourselves on how we look is so much more critical than how other people actually see us.
Wheels started to turn around this idea, that women can’t see their own beauty. How can I help shift this perception?
In my full-service portrait session, I offer a fully guided, magazine-style photoshoot experience which includes the full treatment of a professional hair and makeup artist, and a wardrobe styling session for multiple outfit changes.
With all this, to make you feel special and look beautiful, a woman doesn’t think she will like how she looks in images she sees of herself.
Ok, maybe I should strip all that down to the raw natural beauty we all have. No fancy hairstyle. No makeup to hide behind, and no beautiful wardrobe to cover your flaws. Just wrap each woman in a piece of fabric.
OK! I think I may be on to something.
I am often asked how I came up with the number 1000.
That’s a lot, right?
I knew it was going to be a lot, but not until I was actually starting tally the sessions as I was going. Just getting to 100 felt like a big deal.
Well the year before I began my project, I was following a project a fellow photographer was working on, with his local coffee shop. They were putting “Unity into their Community” by photographing 1000 people for a grand mosaic to be hung in the shop. This was inspiring to me; I am a people person and love the idea of building a community.
So, when I was thinking about how many women I wanted to photograph for this project, his project immediately popped to my mind. It was also an easy number to commit to because I knew I wanted to shift women’s perception of beauty and to attempt to do that I would need to photograph many women.
I also felt I couldn’t ask 1000 women to be photographed without their makeup without being the first one. So, I asked my daughter to give me a hand with my self-portrait. I also needed to work through a few things before asking women to participate. So, I asked my daughter to be my test subject. She is number two.
In thinking about shifting perception I thought I needed to go a little deeper, so I created a few questions for a questionnaire.
By the summer of 2018, I began asking some people I knew if they would be interested in participating. I was a little surprised to be met with No’s, I’m not courageous enough to be photographed without makeup. The women I was asking are beautiful, confident, and didn’t seem like that would be an issue. So, I started to question and rethink things a little. Then I realized I might have hit a nerve here.
The next day or, so I had been scrolling through Facebook and “People you may Know” popped up on my feed. The image of this beautiful woman, with long flowing gorgeous grey hair, was looking at me. Under her picture was “1 mutual friend”. I wondered who that was, so I clicked. I know this mutual friend pretty well. If they are friends, I have an idea of what kind of person she is. So, I looked at her profile and thought maybe I should ask her to see if she would be interested and participate, in hopes that our mutual friend would because she had declined previously.
Well, she said yes and asked if she could share this with her mother.
Of course, you can!
Their session was so much fun, and when they came back to answer the questions and look at their images, they were so supportive and encouraging of me and what I was doing with this project. It was a huge boost to my confidence in going in this direction.
So, I continued to ask women I knew if they would like to participate in this project, and I started to receive yes’s and my countdown to 1000 started to grow. A friend from PTA, friends I worked out with at the gym and their daughters, my physical therapist, friends from church, my hairstylist, her mom and daughters, a friend from my daughter’s girl scout troop and her sister, and my Mary Kay Lady.
As I began to share my countdown, other women would ask if they could participate. It was really beginning to chug along.
Often, one at a time, it was pretty slow going at first. Looking back, it was a real test of my determination and commitment to this project.
By the end of September, I had reached 40 women photographed and had a waitlist of almost 50 women.
However, at this point, I needed to push pause on this project.
I needed to undergo shoulder surgery. My recovery ended up taking 6 months before I could comfortably and confidently hold my camera.
Unpacking my experience with the first 40 women.
Join me next time for more on this journey