I've jumped back into getting everything going for photography again. I went and talked to my shrink a few weeks ago (about a month ago, actually) and expressed my anxieties regarding my photography, and my degree, and my motivations for almost everything that can be lumped into the career aspect of my life, and today was my follow up. I let him know that I am inching toward getting everything up and running, that I've run into a lot of trouble with models flaking on me but I am now only two shoots away from being able to get marketing off the ground. and that things have been pretty good in every aspect EXCEPT school. I talked about upping my adderall because I've been really struggling with focus lately, I asked for a referral to a therapist, and I got put on an "as needed" basis with my shrink, so yay for progress!!!
I really want to chat about photography, though. I got so fired up talking to my shrink today, and when I got into the car to tell Derek about everything, we got onto the subject of my capstone project. I expressed to my shrink that I AM going to finish my degree because I'd really like to utilize psychology in my photography. Not for marketing, but as a way to create a deeper connection with the people I photograph. I joked about REALLY just looking for a way to show off to my department heads regarding my skills outside of academia, but other than that, my own experience with doing a boudoir shoot was SUPPOSED to be a cathartic one. It wound up being distinctly not that, and years and years later, I'm resentful of that, but in a way that makes me want to change how I approach my own clients. A few years ago, when I first realized my resentment toward my photographer (can't stress enough: the resentment isn't WHOLLY her fault), I wrote the missive that is now on my website (or will be, once it's up and running). During the conversation Derek and I had today, he asked me why I was so dead set on doing a boudoir shoot, because it was so expensive and I was ultimately disappointed with the experience.
I told him that I was adamant about getting them done for two reasons:
1) I was in a really bad head space in regard to my physical body. I weighed over 200 pounds, I did not see myself as sexy, and I wanted to feel, not just hear, legitimacy in Derek's reassurances that I wasn't disgusting, I was sexually valid and beautiful. I was low and I hated how I looked and I didn't yet know for sure that I had PCOS so I was frustrated with the efforts I was making to change my body with zero fruits to show for it, I just...I was suffering emotionally, and I was desperately hoping that throwing on some sexy clothes would ease my mental anguish;
2) I realized that, after being raped, I just kind of...forged ahead without quite processing how being raped changed me in regards to my sexual identity. Obviously it didn't make me gay, but sexual identity is more than just who you fuck, I personally think part of your sexual identity is how you approach your own sexuality. I've always been fairly sexually aggressive, and I can't lie, my parents telling me that I never would have gotten raped if I wasn't so promiscuous kinda got in, and...I kinda believed it. I was weird about sex for awhile. I spent a good month not wanting anything to do with sex, and then my logic caught up and realized that what my parents said was absolutely wrong. Non-promiscuous women get raped all the fucking time. Literally. All the fucking time. Someone is being raped right this fucking second. Does being a trans woman of color mean you're asking for it? Does being a straight white woman who just loves having no strings attached sex as often as she wants mean you're asking for it? Does being a virgin mean you're asking for it? Nobody asks to get raped. There is literally no life you can live that assures you not being sexually assaulted. Male or female. I knew this, it took time for my brain to boot out what my toxic fucking parents said to me, and when it did, I was like, WELL DUH. And then I went on a SUPER SEXY SEX ROMP. I fucking tore through Colorado Springs and at least half of the Denver Metro area in the span of...about a month and a half. And I stopped letting being a rape victim rule my life. I decided he didn't have power of me anymore, and I set out to prove it by throwing my vagina at any straight man who seemed interested.
Problem is, being able to fuck with reckless abandon? Doesn't mean you've processed, it doesn't mean you've sussed out if you have to forgive anybody, it doesn't mean you're ok. It took years of denial before I realized I just...I hadn't been very nice to myself after being raped because I thought I had something to prove. That being affected made me weak, so I had to be stoic. For all the survivors that couldn't "handle it", and rape survivor suicide statistics are grim, I had to soldier forward. Five years later, I can confidently say that I am so lucky, I have experienced post traumatic growth and while I wouldn't advocate rape because it has the slim chance of making you a stronger person, I came out of my rape...well....a better person. But I had used sex and sexuality as a bandaid to cover this gaping wound of sexual trauma, and I hadn't really given myself permission to be the sexual miscreant that I was before I was raped, and I loved that girl. I really and truly did. I was bold and carefree and gross and sexually shameless and I felt confident and sexy and absolutely in control. Losing the ability to be her was a real loss, and I deeply mourn that innocence and repudiation of the idea that women should be chaste and polite and never ever be the sexual pursuer. I wanted to be that again, and, while I was too married to go chasing dick in downtown Austin, giving myself permission to dictate how I was going to be sexy, and being somewhat nude in front of a stranger behind a camera, felt like a really strong way to send the ol' FUCK YOU to the part of my head and self image where my rape will always, always be.
Basically, I was trying to use a boudoir session with a photographer whose work I loved as a cure all for my fragile, rotten emotional state. Spoiler alert: It didn't work. Of course it didn't work.
Derek seemed to understand those intentions well enough, even though he did make a snarky "we could have bought two 1DSes for the money we spent on a shoot I ended up hating, which....I mean...fair. I can't say I wouldn't have offered up the same commentary if I were feeling particularly sore about dropping 4k on something Derek hated.
I ended up reading him my mission statement, which he said is too long and nobody will want to read it, AND it'll put clients off. I told him he's insane, it's going up on the website. People who see themselves in it will read it to the end, and people who don't are free to move on, but either way, it needs to be said. He agreed, with the caveat that I need to make a TL;DR version. I refused.
And then I thought about photography as a healing mechanism, and I....I got ANGRY.
I got so fucking ANGRY at my previous photographers. I would have had a longer conversation with Derek about this, but he had to drop me off and go back to work.
So, my engagement and my wedding were shot by a company called Elevate Photography. They do beautiful, beautiful work. It's clean, it's soft, it's lovely, it's personal. I love love love love LOVED my photographers, they were so fucking game to do absolutely anything we came up with, including our engagement session in an abandoned, dirty as fuck processing plant where I'm pretty sure we all actually died of hanta virus, and shooting our wedding portraits in an industrial yard that looked abandoned, breaking several trespassing laws in the process, but Ryan and Allie never batted an eye. They were excited, they loved it, and I fucking love all of our prominent wedding photos. I even love them now, despite being 15 pounds heavier in the wedding pictures and 20 pounds heavier in the engagement photos, which is really a testament to the solid work put into the shoots. They posted our sessions up in blogs, as any good photographer should be doing (I've debated making this my blog for the website, because figuring someone out personally might make you want to hire them more, but uh, I also realize I'm pretty loose lipped and honest and that might make people hate the fuck out of me. Decision pending), but given the uniqueness of our sites both for the engagement AND the wedding portraits, I was disappointed that we were never put on instagram.
Like...really disappointed. Elevate puts lots of photos on their instagram, it isn't just the award winning ones, so why not ours? From a marketing perspective ALONE we seemed like a really good pair to feature. We're an interracial couple, Derek is in the military, we have a niche interest in photography, and our backdrops weren't the ordinary "we-live-in-Colorado-so-watch-us-kiss-in-front-of-rocks" that just fucking saturates the Colorado market. I was a little shocked to never see our photos on their feed, and I really really looked. I have thought about asking them why we didn't make the instagram cut, but I never got around to it. Mostly because I didn't want to look crazy.
My boudoir shots were taken by Stormy of Rebel and Romance photography. She, like Ryan and Allie of Elevate, is a very talented photographer, and I was utterly utterly THRILLED when she responded to my message about shooting in Austin and changing her plans to be in Alabama instead (where I absolutely would have driven to so she could shoot me there). My shoot with her was difficult, for a number of reasons. I really wanted something that felt more authentic to me, and my own shoot didn't feel authentic to me, it felt authentic to her aesthetic, but I erred to her judgement because she has far more experience than I do. I figured she ultimately knew best. After the shoot was over, Stormy contacted me about writing a testimonial for her, and I wrote her one, a very gracious one, and said she could use my photographs if she wanted to. She said she'd LOVE to use my photos on her instagram!......and then she never did.
Here's the tie in to Elevate and Stormy: I cannot speak for Derek, but both instances deeply wounded my fucking ego. I think Stormy's hurt more than Elevate, though. To me, as a client, not seeing my photos posted on social media, or relegated to a blog that very few people probably read unless it's the entry they're in, makes me feel like my photos were half assed, and that I myself as a client was too ugly to be heralded as social media worthy. Half the purpose with my boudoir session was to feel physically worthy of being seen as sexual and sexually interesting and beautiful, and to see the words "I'd love to use your photos on my social media!" but then never see my face on her social media, felt like a really silent way of saying "go fuck yourself, you ugly cunt, but thanks for all this hot hot cash". Being written about on Elevate's blog like they had never experienced as adventurous a couple as Derek and I and then never featuring such interesting photos felt like I was just fed lip service.
And I mean, look.
Let's not kid ourselves. A good marketer makes you believe the truth, and a GREAT marketer makes you believe the lie. I myself seek to be a fucking dynamite marketer, which means I have to say some things that are just flagrantly untrue to clients about themselves. I do not at all hate the game being played, it's fucking marketing 101. I've got it. The difference between me and Elevate and Stormy is, I make clients believe the lie because everything I do proves that I'm not fucking lying. If I tell a client they're a fucking dynamite mermaid, you can bet your ass they're going on my instagram, and I'll have a caption that champions them. If I tell a client they are doing a great job, and they tell me I can use their photos on my instagram, you will ONE THOUSAND PERCENT see their photo on my feed, echoing the sentiment of their greatness. Will a client know if I think their photos are subpar? No. Not a fucking chance. Because I god damn understand how CRUSHING it can be to never see your session in a photographer's insta ouvre and have to reason it by saying that you understand because you're not a model.
Man. Fucking FUCK THAT.
I've had clients that have had positions of power and do not want their boudoir shots posted because their public image doesn't allow for that kind of thing. Clients in the military may not want to be posted because milk bath shots could potentially violate some such code and they don't want to push their luck. Some people just aren't confident enough to have their photos plastered on instagram because of things they're working through. This shit happens, and of COURSE you won't see those photos on my instagram. This is something I discuss with clients before they fucking shoot with me, and they have to sign either a non-image release, a partial image release (meaning I can show their photos to potential clients, but I can never post them on my website or social media platforms), or a full likeness release meaning I can do whatever the fuck I please with their images. When it's the latter, I always post them. Always. Because I can tell you from the back end that it feels hurtful and invalidating and just plain cruel to have someone shoot you and then they deem your images unworthy of being featured on their social media. From where I sit as both a client and a photographer, it says that any given client just doesn't sell you properly, regardless of the fact that they gave you their money, and all they're ACTUALLY worth is a notch on the experience belt, and whatever profit you made off of them.
Maybe photographers don't realize this. Maybe to other photographers, it's easy to just justify this away as smart marketing. My husband has suggested the same thing...that we only post photos we take of the models who have wanted to work with us. I've shot that down and told him he's fucking insane and to not showcase clients who have no problem being showcased is more likely to hurt their feelings than not, and I just...I don't fucking want to do that to people. It feels lousy having had it done to me TWICE. Three times, really, because my wedding and engagement were two different things.
I am not great at instagram. I don't post a lot, I really need to work on my presence. I've been dodgy on working the last couple of years because I just fucking haven't had the time, despite having the desire. I haven't shot as often as I'd like to, but here's my outlook:
If every single session I do isn't worthy of being put on instagram, I am ripping off my clients and I am no better than a snake oil salesman. If I don't put at LEAST one photo from every shoot I do on instagram, it's going to look like I just hate the product I'm producing. Nobody wants to buy from a snake oil salesman that doesn't even believably buy into his own snake oil. Making people believe the lie is god damn critical, and I just...I don't believe the lie I was sold by Elevate and Stormy.
Should my photos be enough? Maybe? I don't even know anymore, because I seriously look at us not being featured on any social media as them recognizing that our photos are not among their best. That the people they are shooting are not attractive enough to garner them new interest in their services. I cannot speak for all people, as I'm sure I am far from the only person that Elevate hasn't posted, and that Stormy hasn't posted, despite giving the go ahead to be put on instagram AND despite being told enthusiastically that using my photos on instagram would be great. Maybe 99.9% of the other people whose photos have never seen the social media light of day shrugged it off without thinking twice about it, and I wish I could do that, too. Maybe it's because I have to scrutinize photos from sessions to determine which ones are worth posting, maybe that gives me a different perspective than other clients have. Whatever it is, I have it, and I can't shake it off.
I truly do not think there is anything more necessary for photographers than to have their own photoshoots done. It's so fucking humbling, and such a learning experience, and I refuse to believe that there isn't a single soul that wouldn't come out of it with a better approach to their clients. Either how they talk with them, or how they approach retouching, or how they approach contracts, something. They would all learn SOMETHING.
My mom taught me to always treat people the way you want to be treated, and I think we all take the line that we want people to do that with us, but when we're gruff or blunt it's only because WE would want people to be blunt with us if we were in their shoes, so being less than kind is excusable. I don't really think that way anymore. I would totally want my photos to be put on a pedestal by the people who took them, we all would if we were confident enough to have them shared. It's a kick to the fucking emotional dick to have that rug pulled out from under you while someone tells you that you're good enough to be on a pedestal on that rug. I really don't want to do that to clients, and to my knowledge, I have only done it once. Of all the people who have allowed me to post their photos, there is only one client that I haven't, and I feel really ashamed of myself for it as I've written this. I mentioned it to Derek today and he said it was a totally different scenario, and while he's kind of right, I also reflected on the way I talked about said client. And I was fucking cruel. Never ever ever to their face, but it's not like cruelty behind the back is any more acceptable. My only grace here is that this was six fucking years ago, and I've learned and grown and had my own karmic retribution for this thrown at me, so I know to be a better person today, but like...thinking about all this? I understand why a lot of people fucking hate photographers. This industry is so god damn MEAN. I am doing my best to not be a mean photographer anymore.
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