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Love [me] Tender: Photography, limited edition prints.

This series of intimate self-portraits has been a long time coming... it was my sister who was the "pretty one"... the "thin one"... the "smart one"... I grew up in her shadow... I was her little sister... never quite matching up to her, never able to be mom's "favorite"... These are painful thoughts, years of feeling self-loathing... today I took these photos of myself with love and forgiveness, and thoughts of "I am beautiful"... chubby, but beautiful...

My mother's heritage to me was her sense of herself as a "fat person"... not quite worthy of beauty and maybe this is why she admired and "loved" my sister more, for she was the "beautiful one".... Maybe I was too much a mirror to her.

Feeling deep pains as I write this... but today is the day I fight back and say to my mother "It's OK to be fat"... It's beautiful if you feel beautiful inside, if you are loved deeply by a wonderful man, and if you love yourself enough to forgive yourself for being "fat"....

I think these photos of myself are full of love and beauty... that's how I feel about [ME].... today....

Love [me] Tender, a film by Mary Bogdan

video 3:11 minutes

© copyright 2010, Mary Bogdan    web design: crayon design & communication