Sunday 22 May 2011

A Sea... of Me*

'K, so, just over a year ago I wrote a somewhat defiant blog post entitled "When I have a brand-new hairdo..." in which I tried to give a little boost to those of us who don't fit the category of classic beauty... whatever that is.

And... it's safe to say that despite that defiance I've spent a good part of the last year blaming certain failings in my life on the fact "I'm not pretty enough". Never mind that "not being pretty enough" (for what, exactly?) didn't hold me back from a much-wanted promotion, but in certain situations (such as being "ignored" when emailing folk to organise social events, seeming to be demoted as a friend, or receiving no valuable interest on a dating site) my default complaint is always "I'm not pretty enough". Which... yuh, I know, it's crazy-talk, but once the negative voice chimes in there's no stopping it.

(...Let's not gloss over the fact that this congenital negativity, folks' general busy-ness, or a mistake I made in that friendship shortly after Christmas, might be factors!)

...But I turned a corner lately. And this lass (in a well-timed episode of Glee) helped no end.

Glee's Rachel, Born This Way screenshot via here
Only very recently have I reconciled myself with my own schnoz and my Heidi-the-psychic-possum boss-eyed look. A friend used to tell me until I was blue in the face that if I changed my nose then my face wouldn't be my own and it wouldn't look 'right'... but it took this ever so slightly kitsch episode of Glee to make me feel completely at ease with what I'd been given.

As I ruthlessly quoted, from High Art, on 5th February this year, "...the ugliest quality in a woman is vanity", I have to admit that like many women in the western world in possession of functioning eyes I'm quite very critical of, say, how I look in photos, so... yeah, vain to some degree... I saw a picture of myself taking shots at a work event lately and cringed; it was NOT flattering; too many chins, a heinous "snapper sneer"... not purty in any sense of the word!

...So I decided to go Cindy Sherman and play about with some self-portraits. Maybe it's vain, but when I've taken shots of friends of mine in the recent past, they've been equally self-critical of how they were portrayed so, armed with a new hairdo, a tripod and a shutter-release remote, I decided to be my own photographer. And these are some of the results:


On a slight -- but only minuscule tangent -- I've crafted a spring/summer look I want to rock, just as soon as I can acquire the trilby, and the eBay satchel rocks up (it's been shipped, woot!).


PS This post title* comes from something my friends and I used to say to each other if we were about to talk relentlessly about ourselves in an email... but if you can't swim in a Sea of Me on your own blog then where can you, eh?

qb x

2 comments:

PinkPatentMaryJanes said...

Can I just say how spectacularly beautiful you are.

That episode of Glee did it for me too, mainly because I think the greatest beauties have striking features, not bland, conventional ones.

Love these shots - just beautiful.

the quirky brunette said...

I'm sorry, I've only just found your comment -- thank you so much, what a lovely thing to say! I deliberated over whether to post the pictures as I am reaaaally proud of them, but wasn't sure if it would be overstepping the line between self-acceptance and vanity...

Then I thought, what the heck!

Thank you again, your comment has made my day! :)

xxx