All Posts by Anna Smart

January is traditionally a time when we get bombarded with messages about how the new year is a perfect time for a new you. We can go on diets and join gyms and apparently improve ourselves in lots of different ways.

I don't want to talk about any of that! I don't want to put out a message that there's something about you that you need to physically change or that you should feel under pressure to change.

So if you're after information on the latest diets or the best way to exercise, that's not something that you're going to find here. My focus is going to be on helping you to love who you are, right now. I'm not going to pretend that nobody has flaws, in fact the exact opposite. We all have flaws and we kind of know that, we don't tend to consider that all of the people that we love in our lives are absolutely perfect. Actually we don't expect perfection in other people and we love them anyway. So all we've got to do is learn to do the same as we do for everyone else, for ourselves.

So this year I want to focus on what we can do to improve our confidence, especially body confidence. So across the year I'm going to be talking about lots of different topics. So things like different areas of our bodies, because we all have our own specific hangups but there are some really common issues that a lot of us get caught up on. But I also want to talk about things that happen in our lives that affect not just how we look but how we feel about ourselves too, so things like menopause - which can have a huge impact on confidence - obviously there's a lot to cover so I'm not going to try and do all of this in one go and as I get feed back and as we go along that's going to kind of guide me and inform me on what to talk about next.

But overall there's going to be a journey to follow here and hopefully it's going to end with us all feeling just that little bit better about ourselves.

Much love,
Anna
xx

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If this sounds like you:

- Over 18
- Not body confident
- Would love to see yourself differently
- A bit daunted by the whole idea of boudoir portraits, but would really love to give it a go

Then please read on!

When we want to make big changes to our portrait sessions, it can get a bit scary for us!

We want to make sure that we're making the right changes, and getting everything absolutely perfect for you.

We have a couple of different ideas on how your time with us can be made even more special - we're specifically looking at:

- how we consult you about what you want

- your makeover and your time in the studio

- the style of images we take for you

- what happens afterwards

If this sounds like something you'd like to take part in, then we'd love to invite you along for a complimentary portrait session with us. There's no obligation to purchase images afterwards, but if you choose to, we'll give you 20% off anything on our price list as a thank you.

The only thing we will ask you to do is review our service afterwards, so that we can tell whether our changes are positive. This is private and, like your images, will not be shared by us without your permission.

We'll be splitting 10 women into 2 'groups' (although you won't be told which group you're in).
Please fill in the form below, and I'll be in touch.

Anna
xx
(As with all of our sessions, a fully refundable booking deposit of £50 applies).

The world is split into 2 types of people now. Yes, it's the selfie takers versus the non selfie takers and the selfie people are over running Facebook with photos of themselves, leaving the rest of us with photos of our pets, meals and, in my case, shoes.

So, what's the difference?  I'm not talking about people who post 37 photos of themselves a day, pouting and asking if they look ok, having found a filter that rearranges them to resemble, well, who knows, but not themselves.

No, I mean those people that, when out and about somewhere new, like to have a memento of the occasion. Nights out, meals with friends, holidays.

Versus the rest of us, who did take a selfie once, deleted it in horror, forgot all about it. Until the next time we took one, deleted it in horror, forgot all about it. And so on.

Why can't we, just for once, have a selfie worthy of sharing. Or keeping. You know, as a profile pic instead of our kids, dog or favourite meme.

​Well, we can. We just have to take more than one photo...oh, the horror.

Now, I don't mean we take a photo from the same angle with the same expression, repeatedly, hoping this next one will magically turn out better and then being shocked when it doesn't.
No. You need to move. the. phone.

You also need to pay attention to how you're holding the phone, because whether it's straight, tilted forward at the top, or tilted forward at the bottom, will make a difference to how you look.

What the selfie people have already done is figured out their best angle, and then they tend to stick with it. It's not that they have a natural tendency to look better in photos, more that they put a bit of effort in at some point, so that they could have photos they were happy with, leaving the rest of us falling at the first hurdle.

I've looked at lots of angles, so you don't have to

If you want to see the difference how and where you hold the phone takes, here are 9 selfies I took earlier (which is more than I usually take in a month, I might add).

The quick tips:

If you have no desire to faff with different angles, here's a shortcut:

1. Don't tilt the phone forward at the bottom, unless you want your face to look wider at the bottom. Define the shape of your face more by tilting it forward at the top.

2. Get some height and distance between the phone and you (but don't do this by moving your head backwards - that is the route to extra chins "What I'd really like in a photo is more chins" said no one, ever).

3. Have the phone slightly to one side, instead of straight in front of you, and turn to face it.

This gives me the bottom middle photo.

You may also notice the importance of looking at the lens, not at yourself on the screen, and remembering to smile. I totally did that for demonstration purposes and absolutely not because I am deeply uncomfortable taking my photo, and also a bit of a twit.

Much love,
Anna
xx