If there were a husband of the year award, a Texas man who wrote about his wife’s wrinkles, cellulite and stretch marks would surely be a contender.
The man’s wife, a “curvy, beautiful size 18,” mother of two in her mid-40s, decided to surprise him last Christmas with a sultry boudoir photo shoot to “spice things up,” as he described it. She just had one request of San Antonio photographer Victoria Caroline Haltom: to make all her cellulite, fat, wrinkles and “angry red stretch marks” disappear.
Even though Haltom said she thought her client looked “like a goddess,” she complied and photoshopped away every last line and dimple.
Then a few days after Christmas, she received an email from the woman’s husband. He told her that when he opened the album, his heart sank.
“These pictures…while they are beautiful and you are clearly a very talented photographer….they are not my wife.
“You made every one of her ‘flaws’ disappear…and while I’m sure this is exactly what she asked you to do, it took away everything that makes up our life.
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“When you took away her stretch marks, you took away the documentation of my children. When you took away her wrinkles, you took away over two decades of our laughter, and our worries. When you took away her cellulite, you took away her love of baking and all the goodies we have eaten over the years.”
“Seeing these images made me realize that I honestly do not tell my wife enough how much I LOVE her and adore her just as she is. She hears it so seldom, that she actually thought these photoshopped images are what I wanted and needed her to look like. I have to do better, and for the rest of my days I am going to celebrate her in all her imperfectness. Thanks for the reminder.”
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Haltom admitted she “cried like a baby with guilt” over the now viral email, which has since also brought countless others to tears. The photographer said she decided to share it on her Facebook page to encourage women to embrace their bodies.
“Ladies, I can photoshop just about anything,” she wrote. “But I encourage you to think twice about how much ‘altering’ we do. Our loved ones cherish and adore us just as we are.”
*The image in the Facebook post is not of the woman, who did not wish to be identified.
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