Gazing gently

by Leilia Dore

Images by Sophia Kahlenberg

In September, I went for a swim. I took my friend, Sophia, and she brought her camera.

Sophia is a photographer who makes images with women to help them see their body in a new way. She helps them to feel free in front of the camera, to let go of the concepts of beauty they are holding onto – and are denying themselves. When she first told me about her work, she said what she wanted was for people to turn their gaze upon themselves more gently. Those words sounded like magic to me.

Having felt the warmth of Sophia’s friendship for the months I had known her, I wanted to feel the warmth of seeing myself through her gaze. I wanted photos of me in the water because writing about swimming was becoming such an important part of my life, and I wanted a record of my 32-year-old body. And I knew if I was going to bring someone into the safe, loving, vulnerable world of cold water swimming to take photos of me, it could only be her.

It was the beginning of Autumn when we finally found a date. We brought music, and piles of fabric, and all the swimming costumes I owned. We ate bread and cheese and chocolate and ginger cookies. We were out there for hours, talking and laughing and dancing. And, of course, taking photographs.

At first I felt like a puppeteer of my own body, trying to understand the mechanics of it. Trying not to tilt my head to the right. Trying not to think too hard about where my arms usually sat. Trying not to smile my usual this-is-the-only-way-I-like-my-face-in-photos smile, but instead to let my body be what it was in that moment. To let the photoshoot be honest, and loving, and true. Not to try to control the outcome to be something shiny and Instagrammable and likeable. It was strange, being in the water, and thinking so much about how I looked – normally, swimming is the one activity where I am able to focus on how I feel. To turn off the B-roll of footage of myself from all angles that is normally playing inside my head.

But just as I knew she did, Sophia has magic in her. She helped me step out of my awkward puppeteer persona and make friends with my body, each time she saw me leaving it.

I remember, once, getting a massage after I had been sexually harassed. Each time bad memories took me over while I lay there on the table, the masseuse took my hand, blew out forcefully while stroking down my palm three times. I felt my body soften again – like she was sucking out the poison that was filling me up. I was amazed, back then, at how she knew what I needed in each moment.

Sophia did something similar for me there on the riverbank. When she saw me getting into my head, she told me to blow out my cheeks and shake my face, which made me laugh at myself. A fully grown woman, snorting like a horse, thigh deep in September waters. She put me right back inside myself, just by looking right at me.

Later, when 32 images arrive onto my laptop and I scroll through them one by one, I ask her how she chose which of the hundreds of photos we took together to edit. She tells me that it was several things; the light, the set up – but also, she was looking for the photos where she could really see me.

I don’t think it is me I am looking for, that first time I flick through. I am looking for something else, although it’s hard to put into words exactly what. For beauty perhaps, in the way I am used to seeing it in photos of women. For smoothness, slimness, poise, sexiness. I open one image after another, taking a quick glance and closing it again. It’s ridiculous, I know. I know what shape my body is. But still, I want some external eye to somehow convince me I have seen myself wrong all these years.

I’m not going to list all the things my eyes are drawn to in those moments. No one needs to read a list like that. It would only hurt me to write that list. It would hurt you. It would contribute to a narrative that I don’t want to be part of, where we deconstruct bodies into a list of failings and errors. But the first thing I feel is disappointment, and maybe a little shame. These photos tell the truth, and the truth isn’t the one I want. It hurts, somewhere in my tummy.

On a second look through, I notice something different. I can see Sophia in the photos, even though they are of me. I see my friend’s talent, and kindness, and wisdom in all of them. I see how held I felt by her in the shapes made by my body. I feel a warm glow of love for her, pride in her talents. I remember her phrase about helping women to turn their gaze on themselves more gently.

So I try again. I open each photo, looking for myself – gently, this time.

And I do see someone there that I recognise. I see the reality of the body I live in and know so intimately. I see freckles and pink skin and a face not being held any particular way, just being itself. I see the dip of my belly button and the ripples of fat across my tummy, tucked into creases at the waist. In one photo, my fingers dig into my stomach, dimpling the flesh, and it does something oddly tender to me. I see the way that my thighs look sturdy and strong. The fact that my body has curves also means that it throws shadows, which contrast with the light quite beautifully, in places. I see cheekiness in my eyes, as well as a little bit of sadness. I like that it looks like I am listening. I like that the photos don’t look like I am trying to be anything in particular.

In one photo, I am naked, and looking up at the camera from the water. There are so many expressions on my face, all at once. I feel like I am lots of versions of myself in that photo – five, eleven, twenty, thirty-two. Woman and child. I think of my therapist, telling me that what we are trying to do is bring all the pieces of me back together into one being. I think that in the moment this photo was taken, I am a whole person. It gives me goosebumps.

The images aren’t any different than they were the first time I looked at them. There are still half-moon double chins and cellulite dimples. There are things I don’t like to see. There are the things I imagine you might see, and quietly, unconsciously, use to inform what you think of me. But it’s like looking out of a plane window and seeing layers of cloud, shifting in and out of focus. Filters between me and the ground below, which skitters in and out of sight. I can see many things. It’s more of a full picture – cohesive. Not all one thing. How could it be? I’ve lived thirty-two years in this body. I could never be just one thing. I can choose to focus on one layer of cloud at a time, or blur MY eyes a little and see them all. It just takes a different way of looking. I find that the longer I look, the easier I find it to see things that strike me as beautiful in the images.

I think it’s the same with writing about bodies. As someone who writes about wild swimming, I often find myself looking for the right words to go with the pictures I want to post of me in a swimming costume, with much of myself on show. There is so much that I want to say, about how we see ourselves and others, how much kinder we should be, how much there is to love in the way we exist in the world in a physical way. But that’s not the whole story.

Sometimes I want to be loud, and say: “I took this photo, I hate how my tummy looks in it but I can see how joyful I was in that moment so I’m posting it anyway.” Other times I worry that even though that may sound like a positive framing, it is really just another way of saying: “please don’t think I actually thought I looked nice here.” A way to pre-empt the negative gaze I assume is falling on me through the screen.

Sometimes, I would like to just post the fucking photo. Without overthinking it. To allow my body to become just one brick in a wall, beside others that are diverse and different and varied. My brick unremarkable, unremarked on, but part of something strong and indestructible. Other times, I also want to acknowledge how so many of us feel – that it can be hard to gaze gently, especially at ourselves.

I think what I am trying to say is that I will be trying to take a leaf out of Sophia’s book more often. I will try to see all the layers and gently blur my eyes to let them merge into a whole image. I will let the pieces of life I don’t like stay in the picture, without letting them be all I can see. I will tell all of the bits of the story; different words on different days. Adding bricks to the wall, one by one.

On developing queer confidence

Growing pains