When I was a little girl I would look for beauty in the fluffy fur of a kitten my mother was bottlefeeding or in the colorful paint job on my My Little Ponies. Now that I'm older, I see it in the crows' feet around crinkled eyes, in gaps between teeth shown behind slightly-parted lips, in the asymmetrical pattern of freckles. I find it in laughter and casual handshakes and people walking down the street who I will never say hello to.
In part, that appreciation of beauty led to me becoming a photographer. When I was fourteen, I was a freshman in high school and desperate to find somewhere I belonged. A group of kids one year ahead of me in school were into punk and went to all of the local shows. They were incredibly exotic to me, decorated with Sharpie tattoos and Elmer's Glue holding their dyed hair into outrageous spikes; their clothing was colored, safety-pinned, stitched and layered to make Halloween costumes they wore all day every day. I was enamoured with their language, their music, their laughter; we went to the punk shows and crowded up by the stage in sweat-soaked tangles of limbs, groping for one another in the semi-darkness, screaming lyrics we knew and headbutting people who came too close like angry baby goats. We wore thick-soled sneakers and drank from two-liter bottles of generic soda passed among the mosh pit between songs. Somewhere in the mix of that my mother bought me a camera, a Canon 35mm SLR, and I began taking it everywhere. You'd be hard-pressed to find me without that nylon strap slung over one shoulder, lens banging against my hip as I walked through the halls of school or went on weekend-warrior adventures with my friends. Every Monday I'd walk into the pharmacy and drop off a handful of rolls of used film, then eagerly wait for the pictures to come back in their sticky little envelopes. Photos of everyone laughing, shoving food in their faces, banging on their instruments like the world was going to end. Eventually I graduated to asking friends to model for me; at sixteen we prowled and trespassed in the shadowy bits of my hometown, my friends posing on rusting catwalks or suspension bridges or their own bedspreads. I brought my camera to concerts and angled myself up against the railing, shooting icons, disgusted and discouraged when the developed photos revealed brilliant fuschia blurs of motion. I hadn't yet learned ISO or shutter speed; I was completely self-taught and the first few concerts I shot, I blew it. I saw others taking pictures without a flash so I tried it, then was bewildered when my return was not good at all. Then I shot one entire show with the flash on, trying to make sure my photos came out this time. Except all of those photos were overblown, the lead singer ghost-white, and you could see the streaks of makeup on his neck where he hadn't blended his foundation in well. His chest was red and splotchy with exertion above the V neck of his shirt. No, this wasn't what I wanted either; where were the beautifully-lit, artistic pictures I saw in the magazines and on the websites I adored? What was I doing wrong?
Of course, knowledge comes with research and practice, and slowly I began to develop my skills. By the time I went away to college I felt fairly confident and upgraded to a digital SLR, sure that this would not only be cheaper but would yield better results than my previous endeavors with film. I taught myself using college friends and the beautiful wilderness around our campus in West Virginia; I had whole scrapbooks of pictures of snow, leaves, twigs. I wish they'd turned out better because Mother Nature gave me a beautiful canvas and I just wasn't entirely sure how to capture it properly.
Now I am twenty-seven, and I would never say that I'm a great photographer but I've certainly lucked out and snagged some shots I'm incredibly proud of. Some of my work's been published, and most of it hasn't. Either way, I have quite a bit that I can look at with pride, and that's more than I could've said in high school when I had no idea what an aperture was.
However, one thing has never changed within me; I still find beauty everywhere I look. I am drawn to the unusual, the unique, and the unconventional. I have shot models with perfect bone structure and illicit bodies straight from the cover of adult magazines; I've shot pouting mouths and perfectly-bent wrists and smoldering eyes more times than I care to count. There's something about seeing a camera come out that lends most people to put on a mask and strike a pose.
The models who are the most beautiful to me are the ones who allow their flaws to show and who make them their own. Who refused to see them as 'flaws' and instead labeled them 'assets'. These models make my life so much easier, and together we create art that I'm incredibly proud of.
At my heaviest, I still wanted to be a burlesque dancer. I've watched the art since I was probably fifteen or so and have always envied their fluid grace. Many burlesque dancers are heavier-set girls who mainstream society say shouldn't be in skimpy sequined and beaded outfits, shimmying on a stage. There is a club in LA that I've always wanted to attend; Club Bounce caters to plus-sized women and their admirers, and the idea of a club like that thriving in a city as looks-obsessed as LA makes me so happy.
I was self-conscious growing up and refused to wear anything revealing or sexy; I performed as Frank-n-Furter once in a production of Rocky Horror Picture Show. It took all of my nerve to pull on those thigh-highs and step into those shoes, and when I looked in the mirror I was actually proud of myself for doing it. I made it through the performance and we got an ovation; people loved it. As I was walking out of the theater, I overheard someone make a remark about how 'huge' the Frank was in the cast, and immediately I felt a flood of shame and embarrassment. I had made an asshole of myself in front of a theater full of people. No one wanted to see a girl my size parading around in panties and a garter belt. What had been a fantastic night was ruined in one fell blow.
I am now 230 pounds, the scale holding steady, and I am working out with a trainer and eating right in small portions. I am living life to the fullest; my ankles and knees don't hurt anymore when I walk, and I feel confident and beautiful most of the time. I am still morbidly obese by pretty much any standards on any map, but I don't feel that way. I bought a dress at H&M, which doesn't carry plus sizes, and it fits me wonderfully. I got my hair cut off and for the first time I can see my jawline without having to do a special 'Myspace angle' head tilt to do so. I have some work to do on my body yet, but overall I am in love with the feeling of moving without pain, of fitting into clothes that don't necessarily cover every inch of skin of mine.
This weekend, friends and I went out to a fancy dinner and we dressed up. I shimmied into leggings and high heels, a dress that came from the 'regular'-sized rack at Hot Topic, and a shrug. I felt like a million bucks and kept my head high all night. I didn't feel like the 'fat girl' playing dress-up the way I did when I would try to disguise my body in a dress. I felt beautiful.
And yet.
I came online tonight to find a girl I vaguely know (we met once at a concert over a year ago, and she isn't the kind of person I'm likely to hang out with on my own time) writing a rant on her Facebook feed about how 'pathetic' it is that bigger and older girls get their pictures taken and profess to be 'models', coming up with pinup names for themselves and such. She got defensive when I called her out for being close-minded, but honestly everything about what she had written rubbed me the wrong way. I'm friends with a lot of plus-sized models, actresses and pinup girls. I know big girls who can shake what their mamas gave them better than any 'svelte' girl I've seen. I hire curvy burlesque girls for my birthday parties. As for the 'old' bit, who is she to judge who is 'too old' to be beautiful? My favorite model I've ever shot is in her early forties, a mother, and was laughing for most of the shoot and 'ruining' any chance of making the photos 'sexy' (for the record, the end result was some of the most beautiful and wonderfully natural photos I've ever shot).
In short... I believe everyone is beautiful. I think of all of those years that I was shamed for wearing tank tops or shorts or a bathing suit. I think of the hateful comments made to me in hallways or stores, or worse, the 'well-meaning' comments about my 'pretty face' or asking if I really needed another slice of pizza. My entire life, my family were the only ones who tried to convince me that I was beautiful; everyone else around me delegated me to the role of the fat friend and I adapted accordingly. Now, I am still fat but I am fiercer than I've ever been before. I am all teeth and claws when it comes to defying the beauty standard; we are all models, no matter our size or age or gender or bone structure. We have the right to bare ourselves in front of unblinking lenses and turn the bodies that society critiques into art. We have to own ourselves and tap into that inner beauty or we'll stop noticing it at all.
We are all worthy of being framed. Every roll, stretch mark, freckle, scar, wrinkle, stray hair, crows' foot, bald spot. Every single thing that makes you who you are is your own--- own it, and make it beautiful. Make every moment worthy of a picture. Make every breath art.
Life's too short to worry about people telling you what you are or aren't.
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