Like many young girls growing up, I didn’t feel comfortable with myself. I was way too critical about myself and thought that I was “fat.” My weight fluctuated, stretch marks emerged at a young age, the prevailing message that we were told was that something needed to change. They said you are too much or too little. However, amidst all this I saw immense beauty in the women surrounding me, leaving me astounded by their inability to see the beauty in themselves.

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During my youthful days, my photographic interests gravitated towards capturing nature's beauty. Yet, I yearned to discover the same allure within myself. With a tripod and a self-timer on my camera, I turned the camera on myself. When I looked at the photos, I saw that in one shot, I turned out exactly how I wanted, and in the next, I reflected what I had actively sought to avoid. The initial photograph captured a happiness, radiating from my smile, while in the second, my attention was drawn to my posture, and the way I had contorted my body.

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I always photographed nature when I was young and I wanted to see beauty in myself so I set up a timer and photographed myself. When I looked at the photos, I saw that in one shot, I turned out exactly how I wanted, and in the next, I looked exactly how I didn’t want to. In the first photo, I looked happy so I focused on my smile and in the second, I focused on how I turned my body in a “weird way.”

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Somehow, that’s all it took for it to make sense. Photography, mindset and life are all about what you focus on. Photography helped me see that if I focus on the negatives, I will hate the overall photo, but if I focus on the positives, the not-so-positives also become alright.