How My Photography Career Transformed My Life
There I was, going about my life just like everyone else in the world—hating my 9-5, dreaming about my next annual vacation, and spending time with my loved ones when suddenly, it all changed.
My analytical/science-minded brain took a turn into the right hemisphere and the next twenty years of my life came and went.
WHEW!
My curious brain dived into a part of me that I had never explored in any real way before: creativity. Photographing women has been more fulfilling than anything that ever came before. Convincing women to trust me, teaching them how to come alive for the camera, and partnering with them to somehow capture the bare soul is such a magical mystery.
However, the mystery isn’t in the photograph; it turns out it’s in the question most women want an answer to:
Am I pretty?
Don’t let the simplicity of that question fool you into believing that the concept of physical beauty to a woman is uncomplicated by any stretch of the imagination. That three-word question goes far deeper.
What we’re really asking is if we’re seen, desired, admired, special, worthy, unique, and attractive on a level that goes far beyond what the eye can see. But mostly, we want to know if we’re loved by the one person in the whole world whose love matters the most: ourselves.
My job is to answer those questions, particularly that last one by helping women come face to face with their self-worth. This isn’t news, friends. As I said, I've been doing this for twenty years. But I never saw my confrontation with the very same thing coming.
Oof.
All the time I had been confidently leading women into journeys of self-exploration and discovery, I had no idea that it was a reflection of all that I desperately needed to learn myself. Looking back, I can see that my journey started at the very beginning of my photography business but I didn’t become conscious of it until much later. That may sound sugary sweet and even gloriously revelatory but you should think of it more akin to a baby bird falling out of the nest and splattering its guts all over the sidewalk.
Yep. It hurt…a lot.
After getting up, collecting my innards, and attempting to put them back into place, I found six years had passed…and here I am today.
Sheezus, Mary, and Steve, those years have been rough. Would you believe me if I told you they were also sugary sweet and gloriously revelatory? In those years, I learned more about myself, the world, the human condition and experience, compassion, beauty, pain, suffering, and love than the previous forty-five combined. I went from a place of blissful ignorance to complete self-loathing to a love of self that blew my mind.
All of this is because of photography.
Who could’ve ever known that starting a business on a whim two decades ago would be the foundation upon which my biggest life transformation would be built?? Now, I feel empty if I’m not working on my relationship with myself. I’m completely unfulfilled if I’m not absorbed in something creative. Every conversation and relationship has to be so intricately intimate that I feel like I’m intimately intertwined with the other person very intricately.
I’m also completely obsessed with helping other women walk this path too.
This is what I do, and I’m good at it.
I am a life coach specializing in self-worth and women. I am an author who has written a guidebook on learning to love yourself. I am a Reiki practitioner who heals the blocks getting in the way of who you’re meant to be. I am a photographer who takes you on an inner journey by leading you through an outer, visual experience.
Pick your poison, ladies. Better yet, pick them all. If you’re serious about getting to the bottom of what’s holding you back from your dream life and your dream self, I’m right here, continuing my life in a very sugary sweet and gloriously revelatory way.
