Her Husband Sent This Letter to the Photographer Who Retouched Her Pictures
We are our worst enemies, the mirror shouts to us again and again. We behave as tyrants towards our image and our internal dialogue can be truly brutal.
“I’m not happy as I am.” “I have a body that I don’t like”. “I don’t look good.” “I hate my teeth, my chest, my hips.” “I’m skin and bones, I have no shape”. “I’m overweight.” “Since pregnancy, I haven’t gotten my shape back.” “I never approach others for fear of being rejected.” “I’m afraid they’ll judge me.” “All my friends are in a relationship except me…”
We forget that we are not made to fit into a mold, so until we understand that, we are not safe with ourselves.
Because if every time we look in the mirror we scold ourselves for the fat on our thighs, lacking breasts or a buttocks, by the rolls on our back or the wrinkles on our face, we recreate an internal space dedicated to punishment and humiliation rather than love and security.
We cannot imagine what we miss by not looking beyond the mirror. We can’t understand what it does to our well-being when we run away from observing ourselves, exploring ourselves and recognizing ourselves in our figure and our perfect imperfections.
A story, some pictures and love
It all started when one day the photographer, Victoria Caroline, was hired by a woman to do a photo shoot of her in subtle, sensual lingerie to surprise her husband.
Everything was on the fly. The woman was ravishing, funny, naughty, sexy and very confident. In fact, the photographer was very satisfied with the result and happily ended the session.
However, once it was finished was when the woman, who wore a size 46 (18), looked the photographer in the eyes and said, “I want you to use Photoshop to remove my red marks, my fat, my stretch marks, my wrinkles and all the flesh that isn’t where it should be.”
Victoria did her work, retouched the pictures and printed a great album that her client was delighted with. But over time something happened that shook this artist and made her decide to publish this story on her Facebook page: the client’s husband wrote her this email.
“When my wife gave me the album and I opened it, my heart sank. You can tell that the photographs are the beautiful work of a very talented photographer but… they are not of my wife.
You have made each one of her defects disappear, although I’m sure that’s exactly what she asked you to do. By erasing them, so were marks that attest to our life together.
When her stretch marks were erased, with it went the evidence of our children’s lives. Removing her wrinkles, removed her marks of expression, laughter and the concerns we have faced together during these past two decades. When you removed her cellulite, so too were the times when she cooked and took care of us.
It was after seeing those unreal images that I realized that, frankly, I do not tell her often enough how much I love and adore her as she is, with all her faults. She certainly hears it so infrequently that she believed that these images with Photoshop are really what I wanted and needed to see.
Honestly, I have to do better, and for the rest of our days celebrate every imperfection. Thanks for the reminder .”
This story invites us to make peace with our body and forget our battle with the aesthetics of our weight and our size. Our worth depends on us, not on our body. If we want to change something, it is for our health and not by social pressure.
The key to beauty is in the eyes with which you look at it, and only you can feel beautiful inside and out. So, this story shows that as Saint-Exupery wrote in The Little Prince, “you only see well with the heart because what is essential is invisible to the eye“.
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