Too often, people say the last time they had their portraits taken was for their senior photos in high school. Most people have changed a lot since they were 17 or 18, but there are years and decades that remain uncaptured, lost to time.

Why are so many of us so reluctant to step in front of the camera? For many parents, they would rather focus on capturing memories of their children, and with cell phone cameras, it’s easier to take photos of the kids than to include themselves.

For others, it’s concern about how they look—a fear that they’ve gained too much weight, that they don’t know how to smile, that they will look less put-together than they wish they were.

Regardless of the reason, it’s time to step in front of the camera and show the world the strong, amazing person you are.

Do it for your loved ones.

Have you ever been to a funeral where all the photos of the person who had passed were decades old, where there were no images that captured who they were in the years before their death?

Now, imagine your own funeral. It may sound morbid, but bear with me. What photos will your friends and family have to show of you? Will they be able to look back on your entire life, watching you mature and remembering cherished memories? Or will they only have a few cell phone photos snapped here and there on the rare occasions when they could capture you before you got away from the camera?

You may not want photos of yourself, but I guarantee you that your loved ones do. They will want to remember your smile, your humor, and every moment they spent with you. And they certainly won’t be thinking about your wrinkles or your weight or any of the things that stop you from having your photo taken.

Do it for yourself.

“I don’t need to have my photos taken. I’d rather have photos of my kids. I’m just not photogenic, and it will feel like money wasted.”

Sometimes we need someone else to tell us we’re beautiful before we can really believe it—someone with an outside perspective who doesn’t pay so much attention to the flaws that we focus on when we look in the mirror.

A professional portrait session allows you to see yourself in a whole new light. You may snap a few selfies of yourself and think you look awful. But a professional will see the beauty you don’t see. They’ll know how to light and pose you and how to produce images that you will love. Seeing how glamorous you look in your portraits can help you feel glamorous, and that’s a confidence boost we could all use!

Do it for your kids.

Regardless of how much you love your own body and appearance, chances are you want your kids to love themselves, to feel confident as they grow and move about in the world.

But here’s the thing: children pay more attention to what you do than what you say. You can tell them to love themselves all day, but if they see how you avoid having photos of yourself and how you frown at your reflection, they may internalize those feelings and start to see flaws in their own appearances as well.

Show self-love by example. Bring them along to your portrait session and make it a family event! You can all be glamorous together and have beautiful images to look back on and enjoy for years to come.

It’s easy to avoid having your photo taken, to say you’ll get professional images made when you’ve lost 20 pounds or spent more time working out. But one day, you may have no photos to show for the life you’ve lived, no way to remember how you’ve changed, grown, struggled, and thrived. You deserve to celebrate each day of your life, to show the world, your loved ones, and yourself just how strong you are.