Embracing our journey ~ Learning to love our own photos
There are so many reasons you might not enjoy seeing photos of you. When you don't necessarily like what you see in the mirror, it can be hard to look at your wedding photos with joy. As a couple of folks who have been there, and who still sometimes struggle, we thought we'd share the journey that we’ve been on over the last few years towards appreciating our own photographs. Allow us to be a little self-indulgent and fill this whole blog post with photos of us, in roughly time-order, and hopefully you’ll be able to see the points we’re trying to make.
The Endless Quest for Perfection
Perfection isn’t real. We all know it. We know for sure that the photos we see everywhere of celebrities or influencers are photoshoped, airbrushed or even AI filtered. Why do we look at them and compare ourselves to them then? It’s not really fair when you think about it. The other thing we’re all guilty of doing is looking back at photos of ourselves from years and years ago. Photos that maybe at the time you didn’t really like, you thought your hair looked weird or you thought you looked a bit chubby. But now, you look at those photos and compare yourself to them, thinking how much skinnier you were and how young and happy you looked. Here’s the thing though, you were younger but you hadn’t achieved the things you have. You might have been skinnier, but you had a whole lot of life to live, with all the ups and downs that come with that.
A journey of transformation
What if we decided to redefine our relationship with photos of ourselves? After having reasonably regular, yearly photoshoots done we’ve realised something really important that we think everyone should know. It’s not really about how you look in that photograph. It’s awesome if you’ve got an amazing photo that you want to put up on the wall, that’s the main reason to do one after all and we certainly have got our fair share of incredible photos. The really magical part of having a photoshoot every so often though, is you get to see yourselves grow. You can look back and see the changes, in yourself and in the people around you, whether it’s family, friends, partners or whoever. We can look at our wedding photos, when we were like, 25 years old, and see how young and carefree we looked and rather than feel sad about it we can be happy. Because we know that in a few short years time, we arrived at the next photoshoot ~ the first one of us after we started doing this crazy photography thing. We can see that although we’re older, we’re still the same people. Still excited about life and the future and all the exciting adventures we’re going to embark on.
The past, the present and the future
Seeing all these photos, and all these different versions of ourselves throughout the years hasn’t always been easy. Something we didn’t expect to see though are how much we haven’t changed at all. We look a bit different and we certainly feel a lot different. We’ve been through some things inbetween photoshoots, some small and some that felt world-ending. But we can look at the photos that were taken either side of those things and see that we’re still the same.
We’ve come through everything that life has thrown in front of us and carried on. We feel so full of pride and confidence when we look back and see that. Seeing various versions of ourselves, shoulder to shoulder throughout the years gives us so much hope for the future, too. If we can weather the storms of life and still come through it and be recognisable to ourselves, what exactly can stop us? Maybe you can see that in our photos, but it doesn’t really matter if you can’t because our story isn’t your story. We can promise you would see all of these things and maybe even more.
A grateful nod to the photographers
We are so grateful to the exceptional photographers who've helped to guide us on this transformative journey. The story might be ours but the vision they had and beauty that they captured on the day is incredible to see. Selfies are great, and they definitely have their place, but a good photographer stepping back and seeing the big picture just cannot be beaten.
So, thank you so much to SallyT, ShutterGoClick, Hazy Daze and Connor Barrett. You guys are incredible and we can’t express how much you all mean to us.
Our challenge to you
Are you ready and prepared to embark on your very own expedition of self-love through the medium of photography? It's time to shake off your self-doubt and unveil the true you, unfiltered and undeniably authentic. Let us help you like all those amazing photographers have helped us and let’s get out there and get an adventurous Wild Wander planned ~ trust us, it's an adventure worth every pixel.
We want to leave you with this thought: life's canvas is vast, and you are the artist, the storyteller, and the protagonist. Every laugh line on your face, every sparkle in your eye, and every wild escapade contributes to your unique masterpiece. So, here's to embracing the reflections staring back at us, and to the amazing mosaic of life's snapshots that tell the story of us.
Stay wild and whimsical,
Rebecca & Rob xx
