A 1950s Pin-Up Photoshoot Helped Me Feel Confident In My 50-Year-Old Body For The First Time In Years
diane555 | Canva It used to be that 50 was the age women transformed into the Crypt Keeper, or at least that's what society wanted us to believe. Now, turning 50 simply seems like the beginning of an exciting new chapter. What a privilege to get older and have more years to do the things you want and be with the people you love.
Last week, in celebration of my midlife marker, I got to be a 1950s pin-up bombshell. I’ve always wanted to be a bombshell and am grateful to chocolate and French bread for making it all possible. Who wants to go through life purposely denying themselves things that they enjoy, just so they can look 25 for as long as they can?
Like a lot of women, I always have my eye on what I consider to be my five extra pounds. I live in Los Angeles, which may explain how I hound those five pounds when, in reality, they help fill me out. They keep throwing up their hands and yelling, “Just move to freakin’ Kansas already, because we could use some extra company.” Freakin' L.A., man; it’ll mess with your curves.
Living in L.A. and similar large cities exposes you to an infinite number of billboards that act as a reminder of what your body should look like. This kind of constant comparison can chip away at a woman's self-image. But a pin-up photoshoot, and in particular, an old-school Hollywood one (where women's bodies were fuller and just as stunning, anyway, to celebrate the female form, stopping the damage to my aging self-image at the root.
In 2014, I was working on a project called Love Your Body Now: Healing Body Image Issues Through Fine Art Nudes. In a doctor-heal-thyself moment, I flew to Boulder, Colorado, to meet with my project partner, photographer Beth Sanders, so she could make me as beautiful as humanly possible, then photograph me for time and all eternity as a 1950s pin-up girl.
A 1950s pin-up photoshoot helped me feel confident in my 50-year-old body for the first time in years
Photo from Author
I didn’t know if I could pull it off, but once you’re creeping up on 50, you just say, “If not now, when?” Beth sent me off to a makeup artist who spackled and painted and glued my face until I looked better than I ever knew I could.
Then it was off to Beth’s studio for my pin-up photo shoot in a barn on a sprawling farm, where weddings and such-like events occur, where I squeezed into my vintage-inspired swimsuits and midlife crisis red stilettos and struck a pose or two.
If this is what a midlife crisis looks like, then I say a midlife crisis looks fabulous
Photo from Author
I’m thrilled with the results of my 1950s pin-up photoshoot
Being me, I see some flaws, of course, but I also see a lush, laughing, lovely woman enjoying life. And a big part of my big smiles came from posing for a lean, laughing, lovely woman who looked through her approving lens at me and only saw beauty.
For one afternoon, I wasn't fighting against my body or apologizing for the space I took up. I was just a woman in red stilettos being seen exactly as I am and not through Hollywood-tinted lenses.
Shannon Bradley-Colleary is a writer of films, books, and several teenage/young adult journals. She is the author of To The Stars: A Novel.
