Selfie Saturday - The Boss Lady Cometh

I'm keeping it pretty simple this #SelfieSaturday.  This is just one of my little recent pics from my phone.  The light is courtesy of my front door this time - just before I headed out of it.  She is what I call the Boss Lady as I was on my way to a product shoot (yep that's my "day job").  I know that when "the face" goes on and I don those blacks it's all business. As soon as those lights hit the box I'm very focused and it's time to shoot away.

Selfie Saturday - To Retouch or not to Retouch.

Well it's about that time again.  Last Saturday's little selfie just went on my facebook page but this week's has more of a story to it so I'll get into that here.  Here's my #selfiesaturday pic:

It's nothing all that special really.  I think I was taking a shot of something else and figured I'd grab one of myself.  It's got that wonderful lighting from my back door though.  I suppose I wanted to see if Nancy reacted as well to that light as my phone does... she did.

The interesting this about this pic is that, like everyone does sometimes, I had a very self-conscious moment and felt the need to retouch it.  Here's the non-retouched version:

See the difference?  No that's not an anomoly in the camera, or a reflection of something red.  It is, in fact, blood.  Unbeknownst to me my blood pressure has been rather high lately (as has my caffeine intake and for me the two seem to be closely related).  I had a bit of a run in with someone stalking and harrassing me - something that would make anyone's blood pressure spike - and the next morning I woke to find about 1/4 of my eye like this.  This is actually after it had started to heal a little.

So yeah, I felt like a freak.  If I absolutely had to go out in public (which I did for shoots a couple of times) I wore my sunglasses and only took them off around people I knew.  I know we've all had something that's bothered us like this so I hope by putting myself out there and showing that no matter how confident I am in my skills and my body, I do have those same fears.... and then I remember just how darned good I am again and all is well haha.

So as I've said the top image here is retouched.  I don't usually retouch my photos at all.  I am how I am and I'm quite happy to show it.  I'd rather use angles and lighting to highlight my assets and navigate away from the things I'm insecure about.  Really, the whole goal of Scarlet Harlotte is to show people that being themselves is a beautiful, sexy thing so retouching does kind of defeat the purpose. 

I have a relative who went through a period of time where any photo shown to anyone had to be retouched by me first.  I have a picture hanging on my wall where I've thinned her down quite a number of sizes.  I'm not going to show the before and after.  Outing people in such an aggressive way who feel they have something to hide like that will only ever do more damage than good, especially to their level of respect and trust in you.  Anyway, I digress...

I also took this image:

The reflection in this is natural - it was just reflected on my glasses but it just happens to be in just the right spot to cover that blood.  Now it does make for a pretty dodgy pic like this - I'd much rather use some more moody lighting and a shadow.  But for example's sake it does show how easy it can be to mask something if you get the angles right.

For those who have been worried about my health I'm ok.  I went to the doctor and got on some blood pressure meds and got a host of tests that came back ok.  I still need to find some time to go get a kidney ultrasound but I'll be fine, honest!  It's clearing up really well.  I'm looking very rough indeed this morning - no amount of good light is going to help but at least you can see my eye is clearing:

No retouching - I promise!





I'd love to hear your opinions on retouching and when it should and shouldn't be used.  Everyone's opinion is welcome (well ok except that of my stalker - you can go... retouch... yourself and the horse you rode in on) :)


xx