Hey Erika, thanks for sharing your experience. Hopefully talking about it with people here can help.

It's good to separate the photos that you do as a 'product', content that is produced by you and others and consumed by your readers, The photographs are not you and hopefully the Steem community can see it like that. That way you don't have to worry about it being 'fake', you can present your honest life as well as your 'content' on the same blog without feeling like you are presenting a false version of yourself.