When I was a senior in high school, one of the deans at the school told us that prom was special. It would be the last time, until we got married, that all eyes would be on us, that we would be the center of attention, that we would feel like princesses and princes. . I don’t know how true that holds, but I do know that planning for my senior prom felt like planning a tiny wedding, with one exception being photography. I didn’t plan on photography, even though I took photography in high school and, by then, was already a paid portrait photographer working for a nearby studio. I didn’t think about the value of photographs back then, so I just relied on the photographer at the dance with his generic backdrop—some replica of a painting stretched to life-sized—his single chair for all of the girls, and his stock three poses that everyone had taken, whether they had a date or not or whether or not the pose was flattering to their body type. . I lost those photos a long time ago; that photo of me with some guy that I wasn’t yet dating having been long lost to the rubbish bin of broken hearts and minds. For all the money I spent on my dress and hair and make up and nails, for all the days I spent dieting the month before, for all the stress I put myself under, I wish I had a good photo of just me in my fire engine red ball gown, with my nosegay that I insisted I be given instead of a corsage. But the dance photographer only took one shot of me, one shot focused on the widest point of my body, standing nearly straight-on to camera in the most unflattering pose possible. . That photo is long gone; the memories have faded. All I have to remember any of that is a red dress at the back of a closet two thousand miles away. . That should not be how your prom photos are. That should never be how any of your photos are. .
. Model: @modelalijade .
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