Quote:
Originally Posted by Fleur du Mal
This one - it'd be a fabulous bit of social commentary and a satire on it too - a burlesque in picture form (contradiction in terms I know, but still ...)! Do it Tempest, it'd be fantastic! Oh if you could use that fertile imagination of yours to come up with a way to transfer the effect to the stage and make it into a routine parodying stereotypes of beauty and media manipulation it would be a masterpiece!
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I've been finding more and more that my photoshoots are becoming a sort of pictorial form of what I'd like to do on stage. They've been becoming more storyline led than simply me mucking about in front of a camera. At the beginning of the year, they started as a sort of therapy - I've hated and loathed my body for decades and was telling someone recently that I simply wouldn't have my photo taken for years because I thought I looked so horrible.
I remember on my wedding day I was (gosh) a whole size 14 (those were the days haha) and yet I thought I was a fat digusting blob. We didn't have an official photographer, partially because of cost and partially because I knew if I had to pose for photos whilst people watched I would break down in tears. So we asked friends and family to take random photos and I look back on the ones that did manage to get pics of me and wonder how I could have gotten it so wrong. I looked lovely, and definitely not a blob.....a meringue maybe, but it was the 80s
So when I started taking my pics, it was in attempt by my wonderful husband to help me see what he saw and to start to love my body again. I got really annoyed reading a proper pin-up model's blog once saying she was fed up of women who have photos shoots that are just for them alone - I think these are mightily valuable and I also credit Gok Wan and burlesque fo helping me change my view about my body. If only more people in the public eye could spread the word.
Because of my social phobia and cyclothymia I'm not yet ready to perform burlesque, but I do love pretending to be an artist/comedian/social commentator through my photos. As I say they are primarily for me - they make me feel better about myself, and slowly and steadily I am leaving the safety of the house more to find more interesting locations. If they happen to make anyone else smile or perhaps start considering that you don't have to be a size 8 (not that there's anything wrong with that either) to be pretty and sexy....then all the better.
I'm rambling....I'll shut up now....but there will be a set of photos with altered shadows and possibly some other playing with photoshop and the concept of beauty in the pipeline (though possibly once I've got the kids back to school in September)
Sorry this is so long, I'll put my soapbox back in the cupboard
Burlesque is just so appreciative of every body shape 
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