Growing up with Acne & the Photoshop Saturated Industry
I awoke every morning not daring to look in the mirror. I knew if I did I would see a face I didn’t even recognize. A face engulfed by flaming red dots, bumps, and scars. From the age of 11, which is considerably young, my face transformed into what I imagine the aftermath of a bad high school party would look like if it could be translated onto someone’s skin.
But this wasn’t just a surface level battle, for the next 5 years of my life I would be involved in a seemingly infinite conflict involving my self-esteem, self-confidence, and self-love. I struggled to acknowledge who I was, sometimes it was easier to just not perceive myself. In a way, hide myself from myself. People have secrets for a reason and they’re meant to be kept hidden away from the world. Some people can keep these secrets in a way that no else even knows there is a secret being hidden. But with acne, that’s not how it works. My biggest secret was something people could see.
Of course if you’re embarrassed by something you’re going to try and hide it, so I did. I kept my acne a secret and when people made comments I acted like I didn’t understand what they were talking about. Like the fact that my face was covered with pustules and pimples wasn’t an obvious fact at all. Every morning I caked on layer after layer of makeup desperately trying to push my secret even deeper down. This just made the comments even worse.
How do you hide something that can’t be hidden?
Answer: You don’t.
It took me a long time to realize that. It took me a long time to realize I didn’t have to hide my face from the world. It took me a long time to realize that I was beautiful with or without makeup and with or without acne. Longer than I think it might have taken if I had the support of someone close to me.
I’m sure my mom only had good intentions but she was embarrassed of me. She was embarrassed of my skin. Some days I felt good enough to not wear makeup, but she would shove me back into the bathroom and make me cover it up. When the person who is supposed to guide and love you unconditionally criticizes and makes you feel worthless, it's like the world of safety beneath your feet that you’ve always known begins to crack and crumble. She made me feel like I couldn’t be beautiful unless I had clear skin. We constantly fought over how my skin was doing, she never understood that it was out of my control and I didn’t want it either. She never understood that I was trying so hard to love myself.
Then I found something that worked. A year later my skin was clear. “Clear” meaning no new acne, I’m still grappling with scars that seem like they might have found a permanent home on my face. It is now February 2021, I’m 16, and my skin has been “clear” for nearly 6 months now. I feel good. I feel myself. Even if occasionally a pimple pops up it doesn’t throw me off anymore. I rarely wear makeup and when I look in the mirror I see a girl who is completely and utterly in love with herself. Narcissism...maybe....self love, absolutely!
But, I started to love myself even before I had completely “clear” skin. My face was still acne ridden but I loved it. I loved the person I was underneath my skin and I loved the me that people saw on the outside. Acne has such a negative connotation, but acne is beautiful to me.
All people are stunning with or without acne.
But I’m a photographer. And everyone wants me to edit out their blemishes. Hell, even I edit out my blemishes if I’m doing a self portrait shoot. Why? Society doesn’t deem acne as aesthetically pleasing or beautiful. Acne is less marketable. If every photographer just decided to keep acne and blemishes in their photos the market would change. But I’m only one photographer, and if I did that it would be really hard for me to achieve any kind of success in this industry. So this shoot really allowed me to reflect on how I wish the photography industry celebrated all types of beautiful.
Everyone and everything on this planet is inexplicably and so uniquely beautiful. I wish so deeply that one day everyone can see that.