Standing in front of the mirror, I do not pin-point flaws. Because if I start, I won’t finish finding them.

The sense of beauty struck me quite late in life. I never understood what people meant when they said, ‘He/She is good-looking?’. What does good looks comprise of. Nice eyes, nice nose, lips, cheeks, forehead, smile…?? But how do you define ‘nice’? It is such an individualistic opinion!

For the longest time, I used to believe everyone looks good unless any one of the features of the face are missing or out of place.

Lol!

You can say, this incapability of differentiating looks stemmed from the fact that I lacked a sense of self. I never knew how I looked. Good or bad.

Now, I still do not know! But I have learnt to accept and love the face I see on the mirror. It’s very simple for me. If you think you are good-looking, you are! And if you think otherwise, see yourself some more and smile and love that smile till you are convinced that you are good-looking.

But the more I love myself on the mirror, the more I hate myself on photos. For some reason, photos simply doesn’t capture how I see myself. Especially photos taken by others. And to top that, I am camera shy! Over the top consciousness that makes me freeze in front of the camera, making me think how much smile is good smile?, where should I look?, is my hair in place?, is my double chin showing?, etc etc, is the worst thing.

People said me, ‘Put on some makeup, you will look good on photos inspite of frozen expression! ‘ And that is yet another thing I dislike.

I want someone to click natural, makeup free pictures. Like an artist who paints portraits. How many masterpieces has women with makeup?? I want to see photos of naked faces which aren’t void. The pictures that brings out the raw beauty. The pictures that shows the radiating natural skin tone of the person.The tone that talks about the blood rushing to the surface. The real blush. Or the real gloominess when you have tears in your eyes. The tone that shines with the sun and mingles with the expression and curves of the skin.

As eyes smile, when you really really smile from the heart. I want the skin to smile too. Not behind the colours of makeup. But in the forefront. Whether the person has freckles or not. Whether the person has dark circles or not. Pimples or not. Wrinkles or not! Or whatever flaws!

Beauty is a rather tricky concept!

Well, I don’t know what is it like to have clear skin. Infact, once in a while when my face cleans up, I feel terribly uncomfortable with flawlessness. The fingers just shouldn’t graze so smoothly over my face.

I find strength in my flaws. They are my own. I feel, if you really want to know a person, read their naked face. It will say all their stories.

As much as I am totally in peace with my flawed face, I also want ‘good’ pictures of myself that will speak about my camera shyness.

So, this post is about it. Good pictures of myself clicked by me!

And this is the illustration for this post-