Lately, whenever I’m with friends my age, the conversation turns to perimenopause and menopause sooner or later. We talk about the brain fog, the hot flushes and the broken sleep, and then, almost always, we get to our bodies: the extra kilos that seem to arrive from nowhere, the tummy, the “triple” chin. I’m only going to talk about the body here, which doesn’t mean the rest matters any less, and even then it’s never really about a few kilos, because how we feel about our bodies lives in our minds as much as in the mirror.
It isn’t only my friends, either. I read it in messages from women thinking about a session, who wonder whether they could still look even slightly attractive at their age, and in comments from women who look in the mirror and don’t recognise the older woman looking back, asking where on earth she came from. Messages like these make me sad, because I know how many more women feel exactly the same and never write it down.
If you’re struggling with body image after 40, you’re in very good company, and I recognise all of this, because I grew up hearing a version of it.
My mum and the ten-year delay
For years, my mum complained about her wrinkles, on her face, around her eyes and on her hands too, and about how old she was getting. Now she looks at photos from ten or fifteen years ago, taken right in the middle of all that complaining, and says, “Look how young I looked here.” She was, she just couldn’t see it at the time.
Two years ago I finally photographed her properly, in my studio. I hope that one day she’ll look at these photos and say the same thing, and maybe a little sooner than ten years.
We look at old photos and finally see ourselves kindly, so why is it so hard to do it today?
When my own body changed
When I was pregnant with my daughter, I wasn’t too worried about the weight, because I’d always been quite slim and most of the change was in the bump. I could see myself differently, though, and I was amazed by how much my body stretched and grew. Afterwards I worried about stretch marks, and it’s only now that I can appreciate that even those are a privilege not every woman gets to have.
These days I feel the change around my waist, and with the bloating. Some days I look down and could believe I’m pregnant again (I’m not, for the record), and that’s the part I don’t recognise. I try to keep myself fit and I eat well, and I’ll carry on doing both, but it took me a while to accept that my tummy isn’t going to be flat anymore.
And if you’re pregnant and reading this, the same goes for you, maybe even more, because that body is only with you for a few months.
Related article: the importance of maternity photos
My mum and me, in my studio in Twickenham.
“I’ll book when I’ve lost some weight”
There’s one thing I hear from women again and again: “I’d love to be photographed, but I need to lose some weight first”, or sort this out, or fix that, and then they never do it.
But time doesn’t wait. While we’re waiting to feel ready we’re getting older too, and we’ll never be this young again. The woman who’s putting it off until she’s thinner is the one she’ll look back at in ten years and wish she’d photographed.
Body image after 40, seen kindly
I don’t think the answer is forcing yourself to love every inch of your body overnight, and I’m certainly not there myself.
Seen kindly, to me, is closer to what my mum does now with those old photos, only without the ten-year wait. It means looking at yourself the way you’ll look back at this moment one day, knowing that the body you have today, with the tummy, the wrinkles and the hands that are starting to look like your mother’s, won’t be here forever either.
Why I love photographing women over 40
This is a big part of why I love photographing women over 40. Most of them start by telling me what they’d like to hide, usually the tummy, the chin and neck, the upper arms or the legs, and I understand, because I have my own list.
Photographing those parts in a flattering way can show you they’re really not as bad as you thought, and that can be the start of accepting them, maybe even appreciating them. The more familiar something becomes, the more comfortable we get with it, and that’s true of our own bodies too.
Related article: Why Do I Hate Photos of Myself?
A session gives you something your mirror and your phone can’t: photos of you as you are now, taken by someone who’s paying attention to you and not to the bits you’ve been worrying about.
This is what one of my 40 over 40 clients wrote after her session recently, and I love that she mentions the insecurities too:
“Somewhere along the way, I reconnected with a part of myself that doesn’t always get enough space… I perfectly remember the feeling of walking on air when I left her studio! … I feel that she managed to capture so many different sides of me. My energy, my enthusiasm, the insecurities that sometimes make an appearance, and those moments when I stop overthinking, let go, and simply BE.”
One day, maybe in ten years, you’ll look at those photos and think, “Look how young I looked here.” I’d love for you to think it a little sooner.
If you’d like to see yourself kindly now, and not ten years from now, have a look at the over 40 Empowering Experience.
