Day 3

Day 3. Doing things you don't like very much... such as calling your rather eccentric landlord.

Trying to get used to this picture thing, and taking about 15-20 before I post one. A natural part of the photography process, but one that feels weirdly personal when the subject is your face.

Day 2

100 Days... Day 1

This may or may not come as a surprise to you, but... I don't like pictures of myself. Well, the majority of them anyway. There's just something about it that brings out every single one of my insecurities and puts it on very clear display in front of my face. Bad lighting? Oops, there are the permanent dark circles. Bad hair day? Wow, those split ends look awful. Haven't exercised recently? Found those extra five pounds. (That picture up there? Clearly edited, like just about everything we see nowadays. Up the exposure, up the contrast, shadows save, filter...)

I know I'm not the only one who does this. There's nothing all that unusual about the fact that I'm uncomfortable with most of my pictures.

Except for the part where it makes me feel like a big fat hypocrite. I can talk till I'm blue in the face about body acceptance and how beautiful all of my friends are, about ending patterns of body shaming comments and changing the way we talk about women's bodies and their various levels of "non-perfection" compared to the mythical perfect (white) hollywood/blog-o-verse woman who doesn't exist in reality. And I truly believe in all these things that I think and say so often. I just have trouble applying them to myself.

So I'm going to attempt to do something about it. Something that probably sounds inane to a lot of people, but something that I think will help me change the way I look at myself.

For the next 100 days, I'm going to post a picture of myself from that day (or the day before if uber busy... but no #tbt here). #100daysofselfies if you will, to be posted here and on Instagram. And some days I'm going to be blogging here as well about my thoughts and emotions through the process (expect some reflections on cultural reactions to selfies in the next few days). But mostly, this is just me, trying to find my voice again, and love myself a little better in the process.

-KP