A little over a week ago, I took on the self-appointed task of actively seeking out professional photos of plus-size belly dancers to collect & post them in an effort to promote our visibility among the sea of straight-size belly dance photos out there. There seemed to be a distinct lack of visibility when it came to photos -- which was a sharp contrast to the varying body sizes that Ive seen onstage over the past 10 years since Ive been in the belly dance community. When youd look thru seas of show photos, less than 1% were plus-sized. When you searched plus size belly dancers, youd likely get photos of costumes, but hardly ever of DANCERS. We exist, so why arent we represented out there? I think its a two-fold issue. On one hand, I do believe that there is a tendency for photographers to self-edit us out of shows. Whether thats a conscious or subconscious decision, one will never know, but it happens nonetheless. It may be because theyre imposing their own ideals of beauty or what a dancer should look like. It also may be that they dont want to hurt our feelings by posting a fat photo of us (when we are, indeed, FAT no matter what the angle of the photo....and fat does not equal unattractive by default...just check out my gorgeous Pinterest board for confirmation of THAT). On the other hand, I believe that we plus-size dancers edit ourselves right on out of photos as well. Compared to straight-size dancers, were less likely to dance on large festival stages (where professional photographers are hired to take photos of the performances), even though we have a lot larger (no pun intended) of a presence on local & regional stages. In addition, we plus-size dancers are less likely to hire a professional photographer for a photoshoot than a straight-size dancer, even if we have a genuine business need for one, like needing to promote ourselves as teachers. I think its part of a line of thinking that were either not worthy of such an extravagance or worrying that we wont like the image that will be staring back at us. All in all, a professional photoshoot can be a scary thing, as can putting yourself out there on a large festival stage - I totally get that. I just wish that more of us plus-sized dancers would take that leap of confidence -- for you might find that the results actually bolster your confidence instead of destroying them. Recently, I took the plunge & had a personal photoshoot with The Dancers Eye - Fine Art Bellydance Photography myself...and fell IN LOVE with well over a dozen photos, which surprised me. I was merely hoping to like 5 or 6. But since Ive been actively searching out professional grade photos of plus-size dancers (whether they be performance or studio), Im deeply disappointed in how few are out there...especially compared to how many of us I know exist in this community. So heres my challenge to all of you -- GO GET A PHOTOSHOOT DONE, even if you dont think you have need of one right now -- you never know when youll have a gig come up that theyll need a hi-res photo for a poster or when youll want to get business cards done. Or ENTER YOURSELF IN A LARGE FESTIVAL SHOW -- you will not only come away with some great photos of your performance, but youll likely inspire a lot of ladies in the audience as well. We need more visibility -- because IF YOU CANT SEE IT, YOU CANT DREAM IT MUCH LESS BE IT.
Posted on: Fri, 01 Aug 2014 13:51:03 +0000
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