Dorothy BA for web The day was booked. It was time to do a proper beauty self portrait. My regular hair and make-up artist Rebecca would be here. I thought about cancelling... more then once...I even had a good enough reason to. But I didn't. I had to do this. I tell women all the time how they need to exist in photographs for themselves and for their loved ones. I show them how beautiful they are and it was time to show myself. I started by taking my "before" photograph and it was frankly hard to look at myself. I often wonder how I allowed myself to literally double in size. I tell myself - well I'm the boss, I don't have to show the before picture if I don't want to. But I do want to show it because even without the glam and glitz I still see that I am beautiful. We moved into hair and make-up and I was so excited!! I trust Rebecca so I show her a basic idea of what I'm looking for and she gets to work. Eeeeekkkk! When I looked in the mirror I was amazed - behind all these negative stories I tell about myself I see a stunning girl. My next step was to get dressed for my big debut and by get dressed I mean slowly because now was the really scary part - picture time. Rebecca was a life saver and agreed to be my trigger finger and moral support (she even used some of my lines to get me smiling!). I prepared my tripod and got everything set up and we start. I felt unsure and awkward but decided to let all of my worries and fears go. This was all about me and I was determined to enjoy every minute of it. 

Now that I look at the images, I can't even pick them apart. It's self hate that started this for me, but I instead choose look at them with love and gratitude. I see my beautiful shiny hair that has finally grown out, I see my glowing fair skin and my stunning smile. This is me and I couldn't be happier.

xo

Dorothy