how I revised pictures from 4 months ago

The story

so a few months ago I was offered a modeling gig for a local magazine. It was a cute playground themed shoot, I had my hair done, a sweet outfit, things seemed great!

However, after the photos from my photoshoot and others were getting processed for their spring issue, a girl that Im not the biggest fan of decided to merge her way into approving the final photos. Shes been known in the local modeling scene to be extremely rude to stylists and, at least toward me, extremely jealous. She would have a visible attitude whenever designers complimented me (mind you I just turned 19 and she’s at least 2 years older than me), and would ignore me in public while actively stalking me online.

All that to say, I don’t like her 😭 and when the magazines spring issue was released, I noticed something off about my section. The photographers had used so many locations and showed us so many photos that I thought looked great, but all the photos of me that were chosen were extremely unflattering. In one I was half blinking, in another my safety shorts were showing (which I wore under my skirt that was very short, the photographers adjusted it during the shoot for me), and another was at an angle that made it appear I have a double chin. My clothes were also pretty tight but some of the photos made my stomach seem more bloated than it actually was that day (this is not to shame bigger stomachs I’m js naturally a slim thic girly)

Now I didn’t want to blame my photographers because they didn’t have a say in which final photos made it in, but I could tell instantly the girl I wasn’t too fond of had something to do with this. Even my friends told me they did me so dirty with the final copy LOL.

So, I sat down in my room and made a plan.

Whether I was making breakfast, doing my hair, running errands, getting ready to sleep, I was affirming “my photos in *blank* magazine look incredible,” “I was the best model in that entire photoshoot,” “my face card mogs.”

Then one day I was watching YouTube when one of my favorite singers Tyla popped up with a new music video. After watching it I thought, “she’s so beautiful and confident, let me make my body a carbon copy of hers.” It’s so hard to find black girls that have similar features to me, and tyla and I have very similar faces already. But since she’s short and I’m tall I just affirmed “my body is a taller carbon copy of Tyla’s,” and looped a tyla body subliminal as I went through my day.

Then lo and behold I was cleaning out my email when I found the creative director of the magazine had sent me a portfolio of our photoshoot that featured pics from the magazine and more. When I opened it I looked so much better than how I remembered the magazine looked!