A photoshopped shoot
Under her professional name of Victoria Caroline Boudoir, Ms. Haltom is a photographer; she takes sexy but classy photos of women of all ages and colours and body types.
But Haltom posted on her Facebook page this week that she learned a lesson recently in what her work is really about. We’ll get what she learned but first…
The lesson came via a San Antonio woman in her forties and her (still very smitten, it turns out) husband. The woman, unnamed by Haltom, came to the photographer before Christmas and requested a photo shoot.
“She came to me, looked me straight in the eyes, and said “I want you to photoshop all of my cellulite, all of my angry red stretch marks, ALL of my fat, and all of my wrinkles,” Haltom said. “Just make it go away. I want to feel gorgeous just ONCE.
“So, I did exactly as she asked. We spent an hour and a half together going through many, many poses. I went home, made every last stretch mark disappear, smoothed out every dimple of cellulite, took away every wrinkle. I turned her into the epitome of what every woman dreams of being.”
And so it was that the woman got her desired photos and, at Christmas, presented them to her husband. This is where the love story comes in and this is why: the husband didn’t like them. His wife looked sexier, younger, she looked gorgeous. But he didn’t like the photos.
The real woman
Naturally there are reasons he did not like the photos of his wife and we learn about those reasons from an email he sent to Haltom. The email wasn’t unpleasant or even critical but the husband was adamant in the belief that the photos he received were not photos of the woman he loves.
“These pictures, while they are beautiful and you are clearly a very talented photographer…they are not my wife. You made every one of her ‘flaws’ disappear and while I’m sure this is exactly what she asked you to do, it took away everything that makes up our life,” the husband wrote.
“When you took away her stretch marks, you took away the documentation of my children. When you took away her wrinkles, you took away over two decades of our laughter, and our worries. When you took away her cellulite, you took away her love of baking and all the goodies we have eaten over the years. I am not telling you all of this to make you feel horrible, you’re just doing your job and I get that.
“(But) seeing these images made me realize that I honestly do not tell my wife enough how much I LOVE her and adore her just as she is,” he added. “She hears it so seldom, that she actually thought these photoshopped images are what I wanted and needed her to look like. I have to do better, and for the rest of my days I am going to celebrate her in all her imperfectness. Thanks for the reminder.”
A love lesson
That email is doubtless in her heart of hearts how each and every woman would like her man to respond to photos that take away the real woman that she is and replace her with a glossy version of who she is not. And it is also the end of the story — almost. It actually ends, this love story, with Haltom acknowledging the lesson learned:
“Ladies, I can photoshop just about anything,” Haltom wrote on Facebook. “But I encourage you to think twice about how much ‘altering’ we do. Our loved ones cherish and adore us just as we are.
“This email was 100% real,” she added. “And I cried like a baby with guilt for at least 6 months after that whenever I read it. I encourage you to embrace YOU just as you are!”
