Beauty, Strength & Self Love | Intuition Design Photography | Mankato Senior Photographer
You can always bet if I am writing a post about a senior session, some where in that post I will be talking about confidence. It's not that I want to inflate their egos, but I am huge believer in self-confidence, in owning your skills and abilities and loving what makes you unique, strong and WORTHY of self love.
Because in my 29 years I have met a lot of people who are amazing and can do anything they put their mind to. But they don't or can't because they lack one thing.
SELF LOVE.
I believe God, (the universe, karma, what ever religion or ideal you adhere to) makes us with all these little imperfections to make us stronger and then he gives us amazing skills and abilities to stand juxtaposed next to these imperfections to balance and create our personalities. The only heartbreaking part is over millions of years society has made those little imperfections more important. Making us all feel at times in our lives like we're outcasts in our own bodies with it's crazy 'norms', like it's take on beauty and strength and everything in between.
Well, here's the thing about beauty, its not just how you look or about how you dress. It's about the way you feel about yourself. Its about the way you make others feel about themselves. And the things about strength is it's everyone's best kept secret. We all have it, it just appears when we need it the most.
And what I know is Abby, a senior I photographed last fall, was all beauty and strength for her session that celebrated the three things she loves, gardening, old books and soccer. In her gorgeous flowered dress and gardening hat, she chatted with me about her love of old books and her summer job as a gardener, laughed easily at my silly jokes against the backdrop of the lovely Linnaeus Arboretum at Gustavus Adolphous College.
As the sun went down she donned on her soccer uniform and the girl who laughed easily and got lost in reading Anne of Green Gables, morphed into a determined, strong, fierce soccer competitor. As a photographer I loved the change in her personality! Because it represented who she was on the field. And when I look at her pictures the following quote always echos in my head:
Same girl, different look. Just as BEAUTIFUL. Just as POWERFUL.
#BeConfident
