When I shared this three second video, I didn’t think it would gain so much attention. One thing that bothered me was a couple of comments:
“Go to the gym and eat healthy!”
“Lose weight”
They annoyed me a lot because I don’t believe in that kind of blanket statement.
Here’s a little background story on how the video came to be. I met Crystal (featured in the video) in Bali. She is one of the most amazing humans I’ve met. She lives and loves. She is transforming people’s lives with her self love message and coaching.
When I got to know her, I noticed how she tended to slouch a little. One day during our time together, I started directing her as if I was photographing her.
Sit up straight, anchor at the back, push your chin forward… that sort of thing. I got a couple of still images from that and I published those as a fun animation on social media.
As the 3-sec video became popular (yeah some nearly 20K views in total with lots of forwarding/tagging by people), I also saw a few comments that were not really aligned with what I’m thinking.
You know what? Perhaps that is what that person sincerely believes. No problem there.
Both Crystal and I believe in something different from those judgemental comments.
We can love how we are and who we are right now. You don’t need to go to the gym or eat healthy to be loved or to be loveable.
Really… what is healthy for one person isn’t necessarily good for the other. Besides, the most slim, fit or healthy person (whatever that means to you) could look less than ideal when photographed at an odd angle. We all know this, but it seems to me that people blame the subject (the model) for less than optimal images while forgetting that it’s really about ‘direction’.
That is really my point of the video. It’s the photographer’s job to take images that the client is happy about no matter the look of the model. Crystal knows this so when I see her social feed, all her images are gorgeous – she knows her best angle, she knows how to pose. She does not slouch in her photos.
She only graciously allowed me to capture slouch vs directed images so that I could make this point (because I didn’t think something like this would come up). A bit of long ramble, I realise. Look, do you think you need to lose weight to look good? That’s not the whole truth. It’s never about that. If you’re in the process of losing extra kgs and started eating *healthy* as part of your resolution, by all means go for it. I cheer you on. But, that isn’t really self love. You’re enough as you are right now whether you lose a few kilos or not.
Peace out.
