The other day a contact of mine introduced me to her friend as a photographer who “takes the most beautiful portraits of women ‘of a certain age'”.  It caught me off guard and struck me as funny until I thought about it a little bit more. 

Why, if you are no longer 25, are you somehow not allowed to exist in beautiful photos? Shouldn’t you, of all people, have the right to have gorgeous photos taken of yourself? You have survived this life – more than that, you have lived it to the hilt. Be proud of that. Show it off. It’s written on your face, your hands, your body. Save it for your grandchildren, your great grandchildren. We have fine art papers now that last 100 years or more. Do you realize the significance of that? Your great, great, great granchildren can appreciate their ancestry in an ever changing an digital world. Give them your tangible beauty to hold on to. 

You owe it to them. You owe to yourself.