Weekly Selfie Tips – Let there be Outtakes

There will be outtakes.

All of us have them. The handful (or dozens) of photos it takes for us to get that one we really love.

If you don’t have outtakes…you’re probably not taking enough photos to make room for the ones you love to appear. Or you have one type of selfie that you take that you know will work and aren’t going out of your comfort zone. But pretty much everyone I know has outtakes, myself included. And if we just take one or two photos, judge ourselves on that one image and quit there, we’re making assumptions of ourselves without really trying.

We all have outtakes.

I have lots of outtakes, every time I take selfies. Some are me having SO much fun that the photo gets a bit ridiculous, some are ones that hold old stories about how I see myself (aka they might feel unflattering and still hold judgement for me) and some are simply the ones it took me to warm up for that one I end up sharing or like the one above, me trying to get the remote to work! It’s a part of the process and the more outtakes you take, the easier it becomes to not judge ourselves by them.

And most of us probably don’t have room on our cameras for ALL the outtakes we’ll need to take to get the ones we love. So we delete them.

But the work of deleting comes in not judging ourselves in the process. Not completely deleting ourselves out of the visual story of our lives. We all have different stories that bring us to want to make peace with the person in the photo, so I definitely don’t want to define what an outtake is for anyone else. What I’m happy to share might be an outtake for someone else and vice versa. Thinking of outtakes as ‘the photos we take in order to get the ones we love’ helps it not be a shame-based relationship to outtakes and makes deleting just a part of the process, not an act of self-hate.

But however we define them, everyone has outtakes.

And let’s choose to not just judge ourselves by our outtakes.

Instead let’s value our perseverance, our resilience and the way we try again even if that outtake brought up an old story.

You might even find that your outtakes surprise you. That they feel more candid, more real than the final selfie you choose to share and hold powerful stories for you. I know that has been the case for me many times. Your outtakes might be a vital part of your visual story.

You can also check out a few of my favourite outtakes shared on Instagram here here and here and both this blog post and this one share outtakes that I’ve taken in the process of getting the one I finally shared on social media.

Yes, it’s easy to think on Instagram that everyone takes that one photo and posts it, easy peasy.

But that’s not the case for me. Nor do I want it to be. Be Your Own Beloved (that starts tomorrow by the way) wasn’t created for folks who find it easy to snap a selfie and post it online. I created the class for folks who like me, find being in photos tender and vulnerable and perhaps a place where old stories of how we see ourselves await.

But it is because those old stories reside there that it is a place where we can choose a new story and reclaim our voice of how we see ourselves.

We’re already gathering for Be Your Own Beloved and the first prompt arrives tomorrow.

Come join us!

And now, for some outtakes from a recent photo adventure where I ended up sharing the photo on the top left on Instagram and the rest are the outtakes it took to get there (cause if I’m asking you to take more photos and be willing to have outtakes, I’d better share some of mine)!

I dare you to share an outtake today…not the photo you’d end up taking but another one that was a part of the process of getting to that one you really love! And share it with us using the #beyourownbeloved hashtag (which of course you’re welcome to use for any selfie). I can’t wait to see your outtakes!