These bitter, tasteless cruel tabloids makes the celebrity life incredibly unappetizing (part 2)

Then the magazines exploit the celebrity Baby Business. Above they literally pit two celebrities due about the same time together and they battle it out - with their weight. This is literal. The first magazine actually says "Baby Weight Battles" and the second compares one to a waif and the other to a whale. This is so cruel. I had toxemia with one of my pregnancies and gained 82 pounds! I started off at 128 pounds and ended up over 200. I couldn't stop it. I was eating healthy and doing everything I could, but my body swelled. I just have that type of a body.
My mother never gained more than 23 pounds, she said, and never actually looked full term. She didn't wear maternity clothes, nor have weight to lose after any of her births, and I don't think she even had a stretch mark. I did not inherit any of that - the reason being: I am not my mom. We are two different people and our bodies handled a pregnancy in two different ways. Comparing us is... well, stupid. As was comparing Kate and Kim. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. It's just to sell magazines... nothing more.
 

Then comes all the magazines that make all of us mothers feel fat and inadequate (except for my mother, whom I explained previously that she was one of these people who did, in fact, walk out of the hospital in their pre-pregnancy jeans and tiny little tank tops. Yep. My mom did it 3 different times. I did not.)




These magazines are horrible for women! We all wonder what the secret is. What are they doing to lose the baby weight faster than most new mothers (in the entire world, mind you). We wonder: are they having tummy tucks and lipo while on the delivery table? Do they have chefs and personal trainers live with them so each moment of every day is spent getting back in shape? Do they have nanny's so they can spend hours working out, rather than breastfeeding and changing diapers? Maybe they worked out during the entire pregnancy... or maybe they were on a strict diet for those 9 months. (This is definitely something I did NOT do! I liked twinkies and Chinese food way too much.) Or maybe most celebrities have the same post-baby-skinny-gene that my mother was born with.

hmmmm....

Or maybe there's just a lot of photo editing going on... like in this photo.

Yep. (As I slip a Tootsie Roll into my mouth.) It's definitely the editing.

Continued.....

These bitter, tasteless cruel tabloids makes the celebrity life incredibly unappetizing (part 1)

Cover stories about the weight of a celebrity are a perpetual staple of every newsstand. How sad. I have a personal policy regarding reading anything negative in relation to another person's personal struggles with weight, especially when it's written in a nasty, cruel manner.The meanest of them all are the Best/Worst Bikini Bodies that come out every summer. They - literally - make me shudder. To have your absolute worst photo of yourself on the cover of a magazine - and of course, it's not airbrushed or Photoshopped, so it's going to look even worse than ever - must be gut-wrenchingly hard to deal with. <And I always wonder, do they photoshop the "best" photos to make them look ever better than they do in real life? Hmmm. It would sell more magazines if they did, right?!>

 So then, after the magazine folks rip people apart for looking like the rest of us, they introduce the OTHER extreme cover: The Too SKINNY covers. sigh...   That sucks too. But it sells, right?

 



Then we go into the individual cuts. Lot's of folks saying "I'm not fat!!" and defending their right to be human (tho I often assume the celebrity did NOT say anything in any of those articles and it's all fictionalized to continue the drama for the magazine.) They pick on certain celebrities who tend to gain weight easily. Considering the fact that I, also, tend to gain weight easily... so I can empathize with them.

And don't forget about all their STARS WITHOUT MAKEUP magazine covers.

I look pretty damn terrible without makeup. I'm sure the editors of these trash tabloids do too. But to splash it on the covers says that these celebrities have to be ON at all times. Going to the grocery store, at their kids soccer games, getting makeup early in the morning, at the gym, taking out the trash, sitting on a long flight or even going to a doctor's appointment. Yep. They need to look perfect.

I know they make the big bucks but come on! That must be exhausting.

Continued......

It's a Karen Walker kind of day

Have you ever had a day when you say what's on your mind (whether you mom likes it, or not), you literally BARK at people you don't like rather than the cordial head nod they're giving you, and all you think about is getting drunk (so much so, that you have the alcohol in your purse and you're waiting for moment when you're home to open that big boy... possibly before you even march through your front door?)

Yep, me too.

I call them KAREN WALKER DAYS.

"Honey, I'm too tired to slap you. Bash your face up against my palm." - classic Karen.

Tyra Banks is the reason for this site... and for The Eye Candy Girls!

February of 2007.  
That's when I saw this magazine cover. 























I've always been a fan of Tyra Banks, and to see HER - this statuesque beauty who's always looked the  curvacious epitome of health - having to respond to the nasty headlines that she was... well.. fat -  < head shaking > it was a bit unbelievable.

This article was upsetting to say the least. When she modeled, she had to be curvy but still underweight (as far as modeling goes, I mean). So when she retired, she didn't have to mold her body to fit the ideal of someone else. So what if she decided to RETIRE the constraints that were put upon her by the industry too. I mean, who wouldn't???








I had daughters at the time - my own plus I felt emotionally responsible for OTHER mother's daughters, because they were at my house most of the time. I try to promote self-confidence and body acceptance, but when this was splashed all over the television and newsstands, it DID become an issue for conversation with me and my girls.

I wasn't sure what to do, but I had been getting more and more into photography. Though I was photographing weddings and seniors and kids, I really wanted my own niche.

I started photographing more and more girls and women and found that I had a knack for taking pics that THEY actually liked. Even tough critics who said they hated every photo taken of them, they liked mine! To say the least, this was a huge compliment.

At the end of 2007 I started practicing my photography techniques on friends - and friends of my daughters' - and before long we were having Photo Parties and makeovers... playing dress up and trying out new poses, clothes, hairstyles, props, and backdrops.

I eventually bought a better camera, some lights, a backdrop system and kept practicing. And the more I practiced, the more people came to me for photos.

In 2008 I decided to open a small studio in Athens, Ohio. And by small I mean SMMAAAALLLL... it was tucked way back in a basement and right next to a porn store. But still, it was super cute. We had a dressing room, a small studio and a place for props. I felt my best photos were of women - and I could make them look and feel sexy.... a skill, I later found out, was not too common.

That year I asked the girls who were modeling for me to act as promotional models. They agreed and the Eye Candy Girls were born! Basically I get to dress them up and photograph them for projects and promotional purposes, plus they go with me to gigs and help by handing out cards and looking amazing all the time! Honestly, it really is a fun time for all of us!

I closed the first studio in a year and thought I was big shit when I moved to a gigantic studio in a small, conservative town of Nelsonville, Ohio. After 18 months and several accusations from old biddies that what I was doing was wrong, I closed shop. I bought a house and moved to another town. I started shooting on-location and hosting marathon photoshoots. It's been a huge success - much more so than with any other the other studios!

And it's all because of Tyra Banks and her courage to talk openly about her body, her health, and her right to live her life as SHE sees fit.

It's been more than 6 years since that magazine cover - and yet I still think about it when I'm doing my work and - hopefully - empowering women..

... the same way Tyra Banks empowered me.

Tyra Banks is my hero. Seriously.

Tyra Banks: "I Don't Believe in Diets," "I Need Some Ass"

Celebrity Body August 8, 2013 AT 5:40PM By Allison Takeda

 

 

 America's Next Top Model host Tyra Banks says she doesn't believe in diets and prefers her body with "some ass" Credit: Jason LaVeris/FilmMagic

 

Let them eat cake! Tyra Banks says models -- herself included -- have better things to do than obsess over their weight, despite all the apparent pressures to stay a certain size. Speaking with Us Weekly at a private screening and fashion show for the new cycle of America's Next Top Model on Wednesday, Aug. 7, the mogul dismissed the idea of "dieting" and said she actually prefers her body to be a little curvier.
"I don't believe in diets," the supermodel told Us, alluding to juice cleanses and that "liquid s--t," which she has dubbed the "Class Reunion diet." Detoxing might work for a red carpet or a wedding, she explained, "but the minute you bite one piece of real food, you're going to gain [the weight] right back."

"To me, it's like, I lost weight a couple of years ago and that just changed the way I ate, it changed the way I thought. I actually got too thin because I have tunnel vision," she continued. "So when they said this is what you have to do, I was too strict, and I realized I needed to cheat way more because it didn't look good. I didn't realize I was too thin until I started seeing pictures and I thought, 'Oh, I don't like that. That doesn't look good.' I need some ass."

"I was at the height of my success when I was at my biggest," she added. "So then I go, 'Why am I shedding weight for press when, like, I told the world to kiss my fat ass and had Emmys and Top Model was at its peak and I was on Time magazine's top influential people two times in a row -- all with a big ass!"

Banks, 39, doesn't encourage the models on her show to diet, either. "I don't do a good job of helping [my girls] lose weight, even if they might need to," she said. "We stock the house really bad, and then they complain, like, 'We're eating all this crap!' For me, I don't want them to feel all crazy like models in my day felt. I don't care -- gain some weight, whatever. I know how to choose a shot that's the most flattering."
She also knows the power of Photoshop. "I don't think cellulite is great -- that's not a flaw that I want in a photo, by any means! I retouch that crap out," she quipped. "But I tell women that I'm retouching it out."

"I have too much cellulite right now," the ANTM host noted. "The shape is fine, but, honey, I have on stockings! I can't do short skirts without stockings anymore, so I don't like that."
"I did an episode on my talk show on cellulite, and I brought seven women into a dressing room at Nordstrom's in L.A., and we all sat and talked about our cellulite," she continued. "We had on little things; no one could really see anyone's cellulite. Then we all got up and stripped and we stood in the mirror, and we weren't supposed to turn around to look to see...[but] I had to peek! Mine was the worst of all! I have a lot, I have a lot. It is what it is. I can't really do much about it."

Read more: http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-body/news/tyra-banks-i-dont-believe-in-diets-i-need-some-ass-201388#ixzz2eAG55hvB

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