Trying to teach my tween daughters about positive body image I set up a milk bath shoot for Barbie with flowers from the garden. I took the photos and showed my daughters. "Beautiful" they said.
Then I took them out in to the kitchen and showed them Barbie - on the table in my pudding bowl. Legs in the air to allow her to fit into the bowl and looking anything other than glamorous. "Is that really her?" they asked.
I love beautiful photos, I love pink, flowers and froth - I really do and I love these photos but I hope by taking these for my children I lift the curtain a little on how beauty in a magazine is different to beauty in real life.
I am fortunate enough to take photos of many young families and I am forever saying to Mums and to young children that they look amazing - because they do - just how they are! Smile lines when they laugh, double chins when they lean down to kiss their newborns, arms that look "fat" when wrapped around their children.
Embrace normal. You are beautiful.
Then I took them out in to the kitchen and showed them Barbie - on the table in my pudding bowl. Legs in the air to allow her to fit into the bowl and looking anything other than glamorous. "Is that really her?" they asked.
I love beautiful photos, I love pink, flowers and froth - I really do and I love these photos but I hope by taking these for my children I lift the curtain a little on how beauty in a magazine is different to beauty in real life.
I am fortunate enough to take photos of many young families and I am forever saying to Mums and to young children that they look amazing - because they do - just how they are! Smile lines when they laugh, double chins when they lean down to kiss their newborns, arms that look "fat" when wrapped around their children.
Embrace normal. You are beautiful.