At a viewing session, my client asked me to help her with purchase decision on some of her images. My beautiful client looked at one of her photos and said she liked the photo very much, her face look nice, her arms look nice, her legs look nice but she wasn't going to take it. (ha!?)
I asked her why and she said "Isn't it narcissistic? People are gonna say who do you think your are?! People are gonna talk about me looking this way"
Believe me it's not a nude image or boudoir image. My client dressed in a beautiful dress, the length was just above her knees and she was crossing her legs in the picture. What I saw was a beautiful woman smiling, sitting comfortably and she obviously really had great legs!
As a portrait photographer, I focus on faces and body language. Most of the time I exclude legs and feet of my clients. Unless I was specifically asked to photograph the feet too then I would do anything to make my client happy. If it's the beautiful toes my clients want, that's what my clients get, beautiful toes in the picture.
Long story short, my client purchased many photos from the session but not the photo of her sitting with crossed legs. My client left with photos she can use for business and some for personal. Except the one photo. The shot she specifically asked to be photographed with her awesome heels...
So how narcissistic are we to dare showing off good images of ourselves?
Let's review what Narcissist means.
From Google, Narcissist is a personality disorder. Symptoms includes an excessive need for admiration, disregard for others feeling, an inability to handle any criticism.
The disorder needs to be diagnosed by a professional.
As a regular human being, not a professional, I say my client doesn't have it!
My client has the opposite of being Narcissist!!!
But I think I understand...
My client is a very successful business owner and she needs to represent herself in a curtain ways. She's known to a lot of people and she's avoiding any unnecessary negative feedback.
In our lives, we'll come across people that like you and people that hate you.
Some people will hate you, not because of what you do to them but just because of the person you really are. Ouch!!!
Some people will hate you because they don't have what you have.
Some people will talk down about you because it makes them feel better about themselves.
Some people will talk you out of doing better because they can't do better.
You'll make a lot of friends along your journey but a few will only choose to stay in your lives. It is the truth and it hurts. It hurts bad enough sometimes we refuse to be at our best. To avoid unnecessary negative feed back.
Narcissist is bad. The opposite of Narcissist is bad too.
Can we be in the middle? To love and respect ourselves but not too much to disregard for others. Forget about opinions and criticisms that don't matter. No more too much of others may think of you and you're afraid to be yourself.
I think we can.
It is the responsibilities we all have to ourselves. Find the balance and be happy.
Someone along the way will hate you anyway. Ouch! again.
Choose to be better, be happier and work toward it everyday. Some day it's gonna be really hard but keep going. Be kind to others and encourage others to do the same.
When you find the balance, I believe you'll already have gained people who really care about you, they're happy to see you happy, they're happy to see you achieve your dream...
Wouldn't it be wonderful!