Can I tell you a secret? (no, Mom, I'm not pregnant so don't get all excited) And then maybe we can discuss this topic? I have had several thoughts running through my head tonight as I have been working a bit on a project.
I have needed a few pics of me for my photography blog/website so after church today I had hubby snap a few of me and got to editing them tonight.
Now, I am not a heavy photoshop-er. My skills in photoshop are MINIMAL. I have taken 1 photoshop class that was a 2 part class. That's IT. So as I got editing these pictures tonight and looking at the difference of the before and after I just thought it was amazing, even with my sorry amount of "skills" how much better I looked in my "after" picture than the before.
And then I got thinking about all these women we see in/on magazines and things and how we set standards for others and ourselves to look like them, when they have PROFESSIONAL photoshoppers doing all sorts of tweaks and who-knows-what to their pics. No wonder their skin looks all glowing and AMAZING. It takes 2 seconds to fix that.
So then i was thinking that I'm going to stop comparing myself to that perception of beautiful because it isn't reality. And I'm going to concentrate on simply doing my best with what I have and appreciate the beauty I've been given- wrinkles, moles, freckles and all.
So I'm going to show you the before and after of my pics now. And I have to admit it's a challenge because the after is MUCH more flattering and I don't necessarily want to admit that the first is what I really look like. But I wanted to prove my point that we can never trust what we see.
And that's the end of my schpeal.
(oh, and pa-lease don't think I'm feeling bad about myself in any way bc I'm totally not. On the contrary, I am feeling rather self-assured these days!)
If you are wondering, I lightened the entire picture, lightened the shadows on my face, lightened the circles under/around my eyes, softened my eye wrinkles, took out a few moles, brightened/sharpened my eyes, slimmed my right shoulder and added some hair, saturated my lips/cheek, smoothed freckles on my nose, darkened my brows, then cropped. And it took 5 minutes.
