Photographing My Self

I take photos of myself nearly every time I present as a woman. I do it for two reasons:

1. To feed this blog. (The blog is hungry for photos and it must be fed.)
2. To see if the outfit I am wearing is good, bad, or ugly. Photos are more revealing than a mirror. What I see in the mirror often looks different in a photograph. Photographing my fashion faux pas allows me to make adjustments, for example, put on a girdle so I don’t look so fat.

Self photography is an art. I probably discard 4 out of 5 of the self-photos I take because there is something technically wrong with them (usually related to focus, framing, lighting, or worse, because I look fat).

I use my iPhone 14 Pro for most of my self-photography. The quality of the iPhone photos is very good in my opinion and it is hard to beat the convenience.

I use the self-timer function in the iPhone’s Camera app for a lot of my self-photography. Set the timer for 10 seconds, click the Camera’s shutter button, walk into the Camera’s field of vision, pose, smile, watch the birdie and wait for the Camera to snap a shot.

In a pinch, I lean the iPhone against something to take a self-timed photo. But most of the time, I use a small tripod designed to hold the iPhone. The tripod has bendable legs, so I can use it in diverse settings.

That covers the hardware, but what about the software, that is, the model in my selfies?

I learned that my best photos are ones in which I smile.

Over the years, I have seen thousands of photos of transgirls and I can never understand why some girls look so unhappy in their photos. They are living their dream, although sometimes only momentarily and they should be very happy about it, yet some of them look like they just downed a spoonful of castor oil!

So, smile and smile naturally, not in a forced manner. I used to have a forced smile in my photos, but I worked on it and now my smiles look natural and the results are much better!

I am also becoming more adept at posing for my photos.

1. I tilt my chin up slightly and extend my neck forward to avoid the double chin.
2. Instead of a straight-on shot, I turn my shoulders slightly to the left or right. And pose with one leg in front of the other, for example, by crossing my legs at the ankle.
3. With legs crossed, sometimes I will put one hand on my hip. This elbow-jut pose results in a ladylike ballerina effect.
4. To accentuate my legs, I thrust one hip to the side, stretch out my opposing leg as far as it will go and point my toes.

Taking selfies as you pose in a mirror is tricky.

1. For starters, shut off the flash, otherwise your selfie will be nothing but flash reflected in the mirror and that is not the result you want unless you are Barry Allen.
2. Take mirror selfies while looking at your reflection in the mirror rather than looking at the trigger button on your smart phone. This is simple with the iPhone because you can shoot a photo by clicking one of the iPhone’s volume buttons, which is a lot easier than trying to click the virtual trigger button on the iPhone’s screen.
3. Before showing off your mirror selfies, use photo-editing software to flip the image horizontally so that you look natural and not the opposite, which is what a mirror displays.

I am a work-in-progress and so is my self-photography, but practice, practice, practice and someday my photos will do justice to a complete woman.

(This post is an update of a post that originally appeared in June 2015.)

Wearing Posse

Before and After

Someday Funnies: A Modern Hallmark

Wearing Chloe

An Irish femulator

Scarfing

The first time I visited a casino en femme was the first time I ever accessorized with a scarf. The scarf I wore was one of my deceased Mother’s scarves; I felt that she was with me throughout the evening and may have brought me some luck at the slot machines. I won $150 on a three quarter play. Thank-you, Mom!

Subsequently, scarves became an integral part of my wardrobe. Whenever I wanted to spiff up my outfit, adding a scarf did the trick. Today, I wear scarves more often than not.

My scarves often garner compliments from other women. En femme at work on Halloween a few years ago, our receptionist complimented my scarf, asked me how I tied it and I gladly showed her.

There are many ways to tie a scarf. Google “tie a scarf” and you will receive many suggestions. I have tried a few different ones, but usually I use the simple loop-n-through method illustrated here.

Besides being stylish, another benefit of wearing a scarf is that it provides a method of covering a prominent Adam’s apple. (Lucky me, I don’t have one.)

I highly recommend accessorizing with a scarf. Wearing a scarf is so ladylike. Don’t leave home without it.

How to tie a scarf – loop-n-through method

Source: Rue La La

British femulators attending Royal Ascot

Someday Funnies: Wife’s Day Out

Wearing Theory

Yet another womanless pageant beauty

Someday Funnies: Where’s Wanda?

Wearing Venus

Bonar Bain femulating on television’s Diff’rent Strokes.

Items of Interest

Pinned Dept.

The • Stana on pinterest link in the sidebar of this blog takes you to a compilation of my images collected by Tricia Anne Fox. (Thank you, Tricia, for collecting my images. It is one less task that I have to do while maintaining my blog.)

In addition to Tricia’s “Stana Stan” Pinterest page, Tricia has amassed an amazing collection of images of attractive women, trans, drag and cis, on her Pinterest website. You can literally spend hours viewing her collection, which you can view by clicking here. Enjoy!

Update: Too many people attempted to access Tricia Anne’s Pinterest pages and Pinterest has deactivated her account. Hopefully, she will be able to reactivate her account soon.

Working Pretty in Texas Dept.

Not in Texas

Going to the office en femme just took a step backwards in the Lone Star State. According to Vice.com, the Texas Department of Agriculture distributed a memo to employees last week informing them that they’re required to dress in a “manner consistent with their biological gender.”

ACLU of Texas attorney Brian Klosterboer told the Texas Tribune that the dress code policy violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which deals with employment discrimination. In 2020, the Supreme Court held that sexual orientation and gender identity are protected classes under the law, in an opinion authored by Justice Neil Gorsuch and joined by Chief Justice John Roberts. 

You can read all about it by clicking here.

Wearing Bebe

Kenyan comedian Eric Omondi femulates while hosting television’s The Divalicious Show. You can view the show on YouTube.

Someday Funnies

Wearing Ann Taylor

“Charlie Watkins“ AKA Angelique Pettyjohn femulating in an episode of television’s Get Smart. (Angelique was a cisgender woman playing a male femulating a woman – the rare female femulator.)

Why I am girly

I easily fill a B cup and enjoy wearing a bra without padding or falsies. I always assumed that my ladylike breasts were due to Gynecomastia and/or too many female hormones. Let me explain.

My mother had a miscarriage before she had me. Back then, physicians prescribed Diethylstilbestrol (DES) to prevent future miscarriages.

Did my mother take DES? She is deceased, so I will never know. But, if she did take DES, then that may explain why I am the way I am.

DES can cause feminization of the male fetus and some studies suggest that otherwise-male children exposed to DES before birth may be more likely to be transsexual women than otherwise-male children who have not been exposed.

Although I will never know if my mother took DES, there are other indications that she did. For example, I have Gynecomastia and although the causes of common Gynecomastia remain uncertain, it has generally been attributed to an imbalance of sex hormones, that is, too much estrogen.

In addition to Gynecomastia, I am more womanly than the average guy in other ways. For example, my mannerisms and speech patterns have feminine traits and my thoughts and emotions are more feminine than masculine.

A few years ago, I was doing outreach with three transsexuals at a local college and a student asked how the transsexuals' hormone regimen affected them. All three transsexuals admitted that they became more emotional after they began their hormone regimen, for example, one stated that she never cried at movies before taking hormones, but after taking hormones, she cried at movies all the time. I spoke up that I never took hormones and that I cry at movies all the time!

An overabundance of female hormones may be the cause of my proclivity for the feminine. And my parents may have nurtured that proclivity.

Dad was absent in my early life working two jobs to support his wife and kids. Mom cherished her firstborn child (me), coddled and pampered me and instilled in me many traits that were considered “feminine.” With Dad absent early-on, Mom was all I had to model myself after and that I did, which just compounded my feminization."

I had two strikes against me (too many female hormones and too little male role modeling) and when my third opportunity to swing came, I just stood there with the bat on my shoulder and was called out (of the male gender) on a called third strike.

I did not bother swinging because I liked myself. I was very satisfied with the results of the first two strikes. I liked the way things were turning out. I did not mind being a girly boy.

Except for some abuse from bullies and rejection by their female followers, being a girly boy was a pretty good deal. I could partake in whatever boy or girl pursuits interested me and not have to worry about tarnishing my image.

And when I took up the male pursuit of female impersonation, I found that I excelled at it because I already spoke and acted like a lady, took to the art of cosmetics like a swan takes to water and could fill a bra without any padding.

And so it goes.

Wearing Venus

Femulating in the 1920’s

Someday Funnies: Blushing Boy Bride

Wearing Staud

Meshach Taylor femulating on television’s Designing Women.

He’s the Mother

In my retirement, I have become a housewife mainly because my spouse abandoned that role as her health deteriorated. I perform all of the chores a housewife performs including cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping, laundry, sewing, etc. In addition, I also perform all of the chores that a husband performs including yard work, house maintenance and fixing what is broken.

I imagine there are a lot of girls like me who are similarly situated performing the housewife role to some degree (or totally). But how many trans girls perform the role of mother? 

My daughter flew the coop years ago, but when she lived in our home, I unknowingly filled in as her mother. By “unknowingly” I mean that I was parenting as best as I could without realizing that I was mothering more than fathering. 

My wife often commented that I should have been the mother. Since I took after my mother in so many ways, I assume that my parenting skills were more on the distaff side of the tracks, too.

I wonder if other girls like us were more motherly rather than fatherly. It makes sense that we would be since we are feminine in so many other ways.

And so it goes.

Wearing New York & Company

Joe femulating at the family Christmas Eve dinner in 1980.