Last year, I discovered the joys of taking romantic pictures of Dawne somewhat by accident. Despite being the son of a talented amateur photographer, I never really caught the photo bug. What I did catch, however, was a reasonably good knowledge of how to take a good photo, an understanding that lent itself towards my sudden need to take romantic pictures of Dawne. If you’re wondering why I say need rather than desire, let’s just say that I had a problem to solve…

Like many women, Dawne is extremely sensitive to even the smallest fluctuations in her weight and size. She has never been fat, but as is the way of maturing, she no longer has the slim figure of an 18 year old anymore. Five full term pregnancies will do that to a girl’s body, and in my opinion, she is all the more beautiful for it. The problem was that she didn’t see it that way. All she saw was that she didn’t have an 18 year old figure anymore.

DAWNE: Honestly, it wasn’t having children that made me doubt my attractiveness so much as the 40lbs I gained from a drug I was given for one of my pain conditions. After I took that though, all I could see were stretch marks and too many loose, wobbly bits. Even my face had filled out. I felt fat and far too round, calling myself “blobular”, droopy and flat out ugly. Medically, exercising was a no-go, so I started eating much less. That didn’t do a thing, plus it was really bad for my health. Finally, I came to the conclusion this was just going to be the way it was, whether I liked it or not (I didn’t) and I would just have to avoid mirrors or looking in windows and try not to think about how ugly I had become.

What I have since learned is that I was about 22lbs underweight before I gained those 40lbs. So, in reality I’m only about 20lbs over my ideal. However, I really wonder about that “ideal” now. I’m 43, I’ve had 5 children, 2 chronic pain conditions and suffered from many years of bad depressions. I gained the weight and the depressions stopped. I’m generally happier and more pleasant to be around. My pain has gone down and I can cope better with it… Perhaps an extra 20lbs is a good idea.

Consequently, any (and every) time I would tell her how sexy/beautiful/desirable she was, she would want to know what, why, and most importantly, how? At first, I was all too happy to gush over her divine attributes, but that quickly faded, for every answer and description I could give her was countered with a “Yeah, but what about…. (blah, blah, blah)?” In other words, she didn’t believe me, because she couldn’t see what I was talking about. All she could see was the message pushed by mainstream media, a marketing machine that promotes a child’s body as every woman’s physical ideal. You see it everywhere you go, blasting from your tv’s, full page pictures in glossy magazines and 12 foot tall billboards flashing by at 50 mph.

And that’s when it hit me: a picture is worth a thousand words! After all, that’s why the media uses so many photos and images, isn’t it? How could I possibly hope to combat all of this media propaganda with words, when words are forgotten, but pictures are remembered? Enter Dad’s camera bug…

As talented as my dear old Dad is with a camera, his skill tends more towards landscapes and scenes, not people. His portraits are very much “by the book”, often looking like a portrait you might order from Walmart’s in house portrait studio, and to the best of my knowledge, he has never taken a nude picture, which is what I wanted to do. So the new question became, “how am I going to figure this out?” I wanted to surprise Dawne with this idea (more about that later), so buying a book on boudoir photography was out of the question. I had only one recourse…

How To Take a Romantic Picture Without Getting Caught!

The solution was both obvious and simple, though the actual execution… that’s a different story. Armed with my Dad’s instruction concerning lighting, composition and what have you, I thought that I might stand a reasonable chance of “reverse engineering” other people’s photographs, in an effort to learn how to shoot Dawne for best effect. I conducted my research in the middle of the night for two reasons: first, I wanted to surprise Dawne with this, and the second, more obvious reason; I did not want to try and explain to anybody why I was looking at pictures of naked women. I was understandably concerned that Dawne wouldn’t have believed me anyway… would you have believed such a tale? Yeah, neither would I.

So, in the dark of night, once Dawne and the kids were safely tucked away, I fired up my browser, and went looking for pictures of naked women. Naked women who weren’t Dawne. Ideally naked women who were NOT porn stars! That, my friend, was hard to do.

The challenge was to find the right search terms that would get me tasteful photos, not smutty pictures. My first try was “artistic nudes”. Not smutty to be sure, but by and large perhaps a little more “artistic” than I was looking for. I tried “erotic nudes” and variations thereof, with mixed success (a fairly high percentage of smut), and finally thought to try “tasteful nudes”. Bingo!

If researching the subject was difficult, convincing a woman who was inherently insecure about her body to pose nude for the camera would be almost impossible. To make matters worse, I had to convince her in such a way that she wouldn’t suspect my ulterior motive: proving to her that she is truly a creature of grace and beauty, not a fat old broad, as she seemed to think. Unfortunately, I had to reconsider the whole surprise aspect of the plan, mainly because I couldn’t figure out how to go about it without fabricating some outrageous story. For that matter, I couldn’t even begin to think of an outrageous story that would be even remotely plausible…

DAWNE: I remember Marc saying he wanted to take photos of me nude… Hmmm, how do I put this? Well, what I did was curl my legs up to my chest, wrapped my arms around them and gave Marc a look that said “fearful constipation”. Then I asked him why he would want to do something like that when I look like I do? Marc told me he wanted me to see myself as he saw me. Without catching the beat I said, “What? Fat and ugly? I don’t like getting my picture taken when I’m clothed!”. Marc is, I think, part octopus due to the interesting colour changes that occur with his moods (and the numerous arms when feeling “playful”). This colour was puce with highlights of tomato. This is Marc’s “volcano” look, as in he was about to explode, which he did, at volume. To understand this, Marc’s yell has been compared to the voice of God (I poop you not) and I was about to get it at point blank range.

Marc said (and I quote), “YOU ARE NOT FAT OR UGLY!!!!!!!! YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL, BUT YOU CAN BE REALLY STUPID WHEN IT COMES TO THIS!!!”. I know he said more, but unfortunately my ears had gone numb from the ringing, so I can’t share this with you. However, I feel that the sound waves were impressively effective since I started to believe him: I’m pretty sure the waves of his words made it permanently to my bones, so most of me heard him anyway.

The upshot of this was I agreed to let him take the photos when I could hear well enough again not to shout. God I love that man!

Please join us on Friday, where we will pick up the tale, and describe how I managed to take some full nude romantic pictures of Dawne.

The story continues in part 2, describing the “shoot” and discovering if Marc’s plan worked as advertised. Click on over to Taking Romantic Pictures of Dawne - Part 2 to learn how to do this wonderful thing for your lover, and help her se herself through your eyes :-)

Zemanta Pixie

Related Articles