Embrace Your Face with Tania Sterl

Do you feel confronted when getting your portrait taken? For most, getting a portrait taken can be uncomfortable, at first, after all the photographers right up in your face! Pressure to perform, look your best, not make a funny face, and wonder “what is my face doing?” and so on. And you’ve got one shot to get it right. (no pressure, right?) Your portrait is meant to showcase who you are to the world. 

Usually, I am the personal stylist behind the scenes, styling clients in a manner that expresses their personality. But this time, it’s me in front of the lens.  As a stylist, I am also a speaker, vlogger, and former model, so I do have to face the camera on a regular basis. But don’t we all? Have to face the camera, face ourselves on zoom, face ourselves in the mirror every morning as we get ready for our day, and put our “best face on.”

And yet – I facing the camera, I still get confronted. Facing my face every morning, too. Turning 50 this year, I notice, the tired eyes, more lines, the skin on my neck changing different from my face. 

So this particular portrait session was an experiment in going more raw, more bare, more simple. As a personal stylist and fashion lover, I usually rely on my dynamic attire to express who I am. While this time, we went clean, simple, bare, in my husband’s white shirt, minimal makeup. No feathers or fur, no designer jewelry or stiletto heels, no sparkles or sequins to flourish my appearance. Just me and my face: Raw. Bare. Honest. Vulnerable. 

Sometimes I’m a queen 
and sometimes I’m a clown 
Sometimes I’m smiling and sometimes it’s a frown

Put on your best face, they say.
Save face, they say.
Don’t make that face or it will stay that way, our parents say
“Rita Hayworth gave good face,” sings Madonna in Vogue
The face that launched a thousand ships…” writes Christopher Marlow of Helen of Troy

What happens when you face your face? 
How often do you spend really gazing at your own face in the mirror?
Try it, for 5-minutes. 
Face yourself in the mirror.
Practice your faces in the mirror (especially before a portrait shoot, too!)

Now make a face,
From a frown to a smile
From a flirtatious wink to a serious face.

Really pause and gaze into your own eyes,
Make faces,
Notice the fine lines,
The freckles and spots.

Spend time with your own face, this way as you age, you can learn to accept, appreciate, and accentuate your face. 

I recently went to see the collection of portraits at the Pompidou Center in Paris, of August Sandler in the 1902s. And no one was smiling then in their portraits. No one. 
Why do we smile in portraits today? Is it a sign of joy and health and success…?

So what face are you putting on today?
Is it fickle or fecund, 
Is it fearful or ferocious,
Is it a funny face?

While your face will always change, what is constant is your face is your face.
Embrace it.
Embrace your face, despite all the changes it will go through, 
Through age and illness,
Through joy and sorrow,
Through kissing and daydreaming…