#100 Strangers

One of the unpublished photos from our shoot. Lines, crooked teeth and all, and I’m ok with that.

This post has been floating in my head since I had the opportunity to meet the lovely Kym so she could photograph me for her #100Strangers project.  A few friends of mine had taken part and when I was told all I had to do to be part of the project was ask, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity. (She is up to 32 Strangers out of 100 and you can see her beautiful pictures here: www.lemien.ca)

I don’t like having my picture taken. Ever. The only pictures of me that I ever remotely like are candids… So this was going to interesting :) But based on the beautiful portraits of the others, I was hopeful.

First we needed to decide where to hold the shoot. I took to twitter to ask friends & acquaintances where a great place to do this would be and a bunch of great recommendations were made but nothing that was really *me*.

When I suggested the Elmdale Tavern (in Ottawa) Kym thought it was a great idea. During the shoot, she and I joked that it was easier to photograph people in their usual habitat and the Elmdale fits the bill, I love live music and it’s a great place to catch some while enjoying a pint. The owners are friendly, the staff helpful and the atmosphere unpretentious, it is a great place to catch local bands or if you’re lucky, fantastic gems like Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Wanda Jackson. If you haven’t been yet, you should! (thanks again Nat for letting us shoot there!)

The whole process was so much easier than I thought it would be. Kym has a gift for putting people at ease and between directing me she made conversation, asking about my travels and my daughter and at no time did I feel like any of the pictures would make me look like I had a fake perma-smile stuck on my face :) Her husband was also kind enough to join us half way through the shoot and she would ask him to sit or stand where she wanted me to look which was great and made the whole process that much more natural.

Once we were done taking the pictures, Kym, her husband and I got a chance to chat. She mentioned that one of the unexpected “side effects” of this project was that she felt responsible for people’s self esteem. What she and others think are brilliant photographs, are sometimes not well received by the subject of said pictures. That’s when the panic set in… I didn’t want to seem ungrateful upon seeing the proofs, but what if I liked none of the pictures???

There are 3 things I always notice (read: hate) about myself in photographs: my teeth, my weight & my forehead (the lines are a little deeper than I’d like and when I laugh there’s a vein that is more obvious than I’d like). And let’s face it, we are all our own worst critics, aren’t we? The thing that resonated with me though was that at the end of the day, this was a self-esteem issue. And even though I like to think that I don’t have a self-esteem issue, I rarely like any pictures of myself… I didn’t like where this was going…

So I patiently waited for the proofs to come… And by patiently I mean every time an email came in I hoped it was from Kym :) I was nervous, and excited to see how the shots would turn out and I desperately hoped that I would like them! And boy, did she not disappoint. I had been told by a friend how many shots I might expect to choose from and I received way more and for the most part, I liked them all. Phew… Maybe I didn’t have a problem after all.

I sent her my top 6 or 7 and she chose a few from that to post on the website. As soon as she posted the link, I also posted to my twitter account… And boy was the reaction ever heartwarming. The comments she received for her photography and the ones I received about how great the pictures were very uplifting. The pictures are so me and she made me feel so comfortable in front of the camera that I really feel like my personality comes through in the pictures and I think that is one of the main reasons I like the pictures.

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