What is in an image?

I came across this image in my Instagram feed. It is triggering. I see beauty and pain and I am instantly conflicted. The comments below it full of every opinion, every possible response. I sucked in a breath, thumb frozen mid-scroll, mind silent for a moment while I absorbed the tones of black and white which had been brought together to cause such an impact. As my stomach pulled in and my chest tightened I followed the image back to its creator. Joanna Watala speaks of her photography as her way of capturing the moments that ‘show what is most beautiful in us’, but with this image she had captured so much more.

My eyes are pulled to the woman on the right. Thin to the point of emaciation, she looks fragile and delicate, but I wonder at the will power it takes to control the body to that extent. By comparison the woman on the left seems healthy, voluptuous and strong. But as I look down at my lap, at the softness there and look again at her body, I wonder if like me she lacks the willpower to stop herself from adding another roll to those collecting around her waist, or is she that rare beauty of a woman, one of the few who are comfortable in their skin and can embrace every inch of themselves?

Isn’t that the one of the questions the image poses, why the comparison? Why is it one or the other? Why do we see extremes and difference rather than the simplest form, these are just two women, their truth cannot be so easily assumed by the representation of their unadorned selves.

Looking again, I return to the idea that I see pain. I see two women brought together to show us the aftermath of living in our culture and how their struggle to navigate our impossible standards has played out on their bodies. One trying to disappear behind the protection of a soft barrier against the barrage of media onslaughts we experience daily. The other literally disappearing from view as she shrinks within herself, her bones reaching out to scream ‘how much more’ can she take.

I see art and I see a stark kind of beauty, but I do not see love. I do not feel love from the lens that has perhaps added to the problem for the sake of a powerful photograph, and I do not sense love from the women to themselves. The only glimmer of true care I see is in their connection. Their literal meeting of minds, connecting over a shared experience of vulnerability and exposure. They know the damage that can be inflicted from outside as well as within, and the battle between our minds and our mouths. They know of the lies that our eyes tell and the illogical nature of the pain they drink in. Theirs is an extreme characterisation of our own internalised struggles with body image and the stories we hide beneath our clothes.

In truth though aren’t those just my imaginings? Reading the comments underneath the post which had used the image for its own purposes, I saw that there were many interpretations, and many life experiences influencing their judgements. We may assume some of their journey but in doing so aren’t we transferring our own ideas of body image, of acceptability, and of the ways we judge and shape ourselves?

If viewed through the changing lens of history, notions of beauty would colour in this photograph in different ways. The 60s would have been in favour of the woman on the right, as diet culture soared and models like Twiggy reached the peak of their success, with the ‘heroin chic’ era of the 90’s only exaggerating the look. If this were the renaissance, the woman on the left would carry the most favour, her lusciousness evidence of her wealth and status. If the external opinion of our feminine bodies is so dependent on the era, the culture and even the country we are born in, then clearly it is irrelevant and untrustworthy. Why then do we internalise it so deeply and allow it to speak to us with every searching look in the mirror, and every glance we bestow on each other?

Whatever the stories of the two models in this image, for me the story of the viewer is the only one that truly matters. For that is the narrative which frames the ‘art’. How we observe ourselves and others, filters into everything we do and say. We may think it carefully hidden but it lives just under the surface, underneath those carefully selected clothes we wear. Perhaps if we could trust our uncorrupted sense of touch and explore ourselves with that, we could feel the strength of our muscles, rely on the solidity of our bones and caress the softness of our skin, our most important interface with the world outside. Perhaps then, we would bestow a truer love upon ourselves, a love that was imageless.

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Originally published in Body Of Hope in February 2021