intrinsically beautiful bodyscapes

We are intrinsically beautiful.
Our conditioning, however, usually leads us to think that we should believe otherwise: that we need to do things in order to make ourselves beautiful, that beauty is something that can only be sensed with the eyes, and that if we don't look completely like our culture's ideal, then we're not beautiful.
That way of thinking is very, very wrong; wrong in the sense of being damaging. Yet I see it perpetuated by the cosmetics industry, drug companies, and other opportunists, constantly telling us that we're not good enough as we are, but that we could look good enough if we buy their products.
I fell for it... I spent most of my life believing that I was socially-unacceptably ugly, fantasising that I was beautiful, and embarrassed about the fact that I even had the gall to fantasise about something so far beyond my reach! What took me so long to realise - to feelize - was that that was absurd, that beauty is something that can be sensed with more than the eyes, more than our five physical senses, and, I believe, is intrinsic in everything, even me. It may, in some, and at times, (me included), be hidden by a grungy layer of harsh, painful experiences and difficult to perceive, yet it's still there.
They say the camera doesn't lie. Since the end of last year, when I started putting so much of my creative energy and love into photographing people, I've noticed something very remarkable - my camera shows the truth! And the more people I photograph, the more true, intrinsic beauty I'm able to perceive - from the young bride so joyfully made up for her special day, to the man who's body shows the story of a life longer than his years - and, somehow, I find I can convey some of that perceived beauty in my images. (I have no idea how; it seems to happen intuitively, and I usually find the pictures I've thought too much about are the ones I discard!)
When I started photographing myself on the mountain, and people remarked on what beautiful pictures they were, I would suggest that I take some of them too. Most responded that they weren't beautiful enough for photos, which shocked, horrified, saddened and inspired me, all at the same time! I realised that for so many of us, our self-filters are terribly grungy. I also realised that I could help those people to start cleaning their self-filters by photographing them as I, and others, see them. Initially people ask me how they should pose, and my response is always that I'm not photographing them in a pose, but rather them in their essence. I suggest that they forget about me and instead turn their attention to their own experience of how it feels to be there, out in nature - fully clothed, semi-naked, or completely nude - and express whatever, however, they feel. That is the essence that I aim to convey in my images, the essence that inspires, stimulates and motivates me... and, I hope, others!

Beauty. Intrinsic.
(Image shared with kind permission from the subject.)

Please feel free to get in touch with me if you'd like to find out more about my intrinsic beauty bodyscape sessions!