We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Stephen Rosales. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Stephen below.
Hi Stephen, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear the story of how you went from this being just an idea to making it into something real.
The idea behind my business came to me slowly, and took me several months to fully flesh out what I was wanting to achieve through my business. Since my early twenty’s I have been fascinated with the philosophy behind beauty; what is the nature of beauty? Is it a real thing in its own self, is it a social construct, or does it represent something beyond this reality? I wrote a paper in my philosophy class, a dialogue of beauty. In this paper I explored the nature of beauty and came to the conclusion that it’s something you experience, a connection or relationship to that which is beautiful. For it to be an experience, it has to be something that exists outside of ourselves, and we have to actively seek to find the beauty for the beauty to be revealed.
I have always taken this idea to heart when I focused on landscape photography. I was actively seeking the beauty in nature and capturing it when I found it. However, nature is indifferent to whether or not we witness it’s beauty. Contrasted to this, Humans are more self conscious of our beauty: we want to be seen as beautiful. And so, we search for a way to be seen as beautiful. However, society and marketing exploit this longing in our souls by pushing a false idea of what beauty is for their own selfish benefit. We have accepted this lie of beauty so severely that we can’t even imagine that true beauty can live inside us. But it can, because true beauty is a light; it’s a burning, living, passionate fire that can dwell in our hearts, awakening our souls and bringing life. Without this Holy Fire burning in our chest, we become stagnant and our souls begin to whither and die. I have witnessed first hand how soul death seeps into every aspect of our lives, destroying us one way or another. This has awakened a burning passion within me to help change the paradigm of beauty. If we could see ourselves the way God sees us, we could begin to awaken, thrive, heal, and be made new. But how do I help people see themselves the way God sees them?
The only way I could think to do this with the skills I have is to start a portrait photography business. The idea came to me in 2021. The beginning of 2022, I started learning everything I could about the business of photography and lighting. I looked for photographers who were doing something similar to what I am wanting to do; I looked for photographers who had the aesthetic I was going for; and I looked for photographers who were successfully running high end businesses. I came across Sue Bryce and her Sue Bryce Education (now called The Portrait System) and purchased her learning program; I learned how to do Annie Liebovitz’s one light setup; and I purchased Ben Hartley’s Booked Solid program to learn how to design a luxury photography business. I spent most of 2022 learning, and by the end of 2022 and beginning of 2023 I started building out my portfolio and booking my first clients. I still have a long way to go, this is still the beginning, but I am very passionate about the mission behind my business and I look forward to seeing how God moves the hearts of those I photograph. Even if its simply letting them see that they aren’t the lies in their head, but something much, much more. Something truly beautiful.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
Hello, my name is Stephen Rosales and I am a beloved bride of Christ. I am a father of two beautiful kids, my six year old daughter Lilliana (where the name “Liana” comes from) and my two year old son Joseph (named after his grandpa, Jose Antonio Rosales Jr.). If you are into personality types, I am an INFP 4w5. I enjoy music, nature, books, and art. I have a small “forest” of amateur bonsai trees, an espresso machine where I make my own cappuccinos, and I write in my own handmade leather journals that I learned to make.
The first time I held a camera was when I used to play around and make videos with my dad’s old VHS camcorder. When I got a little older, my parents got me my own small entry-level digital camcorder, and I used to write stories and make short videos with my friends. This interest in video led me to pursue interactive media in high school, where I fell in love with the entire video production process. My favorite things to work with was the green screen, and making visual effects. I wanted to go to college to pursue motion graphics/visual effects, but the degree was expensive, and I didn’t want to get into so much debt. I had a two year scholarship for Columbus State Community College, so I decided to start there. However, the college credits I got in high school wouldn’t transfer over, so I would basically have to re-do everything I did in high school. It made me so mad, I decided to just take classes I thought would be fun to finish the scholarship. I never ended up getting a college degree, but I did take a lot of photography classes, and when I took the lighting classes I completely fell in love. Learning about lighting and seeing how the light would paint across a subject, making something ordinary turn into something beautiful, awoke something deep inside me. It was beautiful to experience. Little did I know that a decade later I would use that insight to pursue portrait photography and help ordinary people see themselves as beautiful as they truly are.
I truly believe that beauty isn’t physical, it is something that exists beyond this reality, and we are only able to see it through a thin veil or only see the shadow of it on this reality, but we aren’t able to experience it in it’s full intensity in this reality. I believe that beauty comes from God, and when we experience beauty, we are experiencing a shadow of his Glory. When God said we are made in his likeness, I believe we have this likeness in us, meaning we have beauty inside us. Because of this insight, I can’t contain myself, and I want to share this with the world. I want to show people that they are beautiful and empower them to confidently go into the world knowing that they are.
This kind of beauty when captured needs to be shown and seen on a regular basis. That is why I provide printed art work to my clients. I offer high quality albums, mounted prints, and wall art; and everything comes with a high res digital negative. I also pride myself with acid-free, archival quality products so they can be passed down through generations as an heirloom and still retain it’s quality for centuries to come.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
I feel like my life has been like riding a never-ending roller coaster, with each high comes another low. I have battled anxiety, depression, sorrow, grief, betrayal, abandonment, addiction, lust, pride, anger…this list goes on. Countless times and countless ways the enemy has tried to take me down and destroy me, but here I am.
When I was younger, my parents got a divorce. There was constant fighting and yelling in our home, and it finally destroyed our family. This left me devastated and feeling unloved. If my parents are willing to give up on each other, would they be willing to give up on me? This lead me to romanticize suicide and I began cutting myself. This was meant to destroy me, but I was given hope for a future. So I pressed on. My mom moved to a different state, and I chose to stay because I was still in high school, then my dad also moved away, leaving my brother and I here alone. This left me feeling abandoned. Then my grandma died, and it broke apart my whole family. This two, was meant to destroy me. But I was given hope for a better future so I continued. This lead me to become an alcoholic by the time I was 25. I would get drunk every night. I was bitter, hating everything and myself. This also was meant to destroy me, but again, I was given hope for a better future and continued on. I quit drinking alcohol daily, only drinking occasionally, and now not at all. I started exploring my interests, seeing what I was capable of in different ways, enjoying things for the first time in my life, and started making new friends through dungeons and dragons for the first time since my teen years. Then my dad died. This was very hard on me, and also was meant to destroy me, but I was given hope for a better future and pressed on. Then life became so severely busy, I wasn’t getting proper rest or eating a proper diet, and I was constantly dealing with so much stress at work and at home, it got to the point where I suffered severe anxiety and was getting panic attacks that caused my chest to hurt and would cause me to black out. I thought I was having heart attacks – but my heart was in perfect health. Then within 2-3 months, I got into a crash that totaled my car, moved to another apartment, and my step dad died. I was having panic attacks daily. So I booked a cabin to get away for a few days, and I couldn’t rest, I still kept having panic attacks. This also was meant to destroy me, but I was given hope for a future so I pressed on. I started seeing a therapist and got on medication. This was life changing; for the first time in my life, I had zero social anxiety. This caused a rapid change in growth that lead to me building and starting my business, and when it finally started to grow, I was in the perfect transitional place to move to Dayton to be closer to my step son for my wife. In the middle of the transition, my wife left the marriage. Shortly after, she got with someone else. This left me completely devastated. I changed cities, moved, changed jobs, and also had to deal with this? It nearly broke me and ended me. I quit photography and creative pursuits for 8+ months, and almost sold all my equipment and gave up. This was a severe attack from the enemy, and it was meant to destroy me, but I was given hope for a better future and so I continue on. Just in the last few weeks things are taking off again and I have a new vigor for my creative work and a new burning passion to achieve what I set out to do.
What was it that gave me hope for a future? It was God pouring love into me every step of the way using the verse Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you, and not harm you. Plans to give you hope and a future.” I put God to the test to see if he would deliver on this promise and stubbornly kept going. Now? I know he will keep his propose so I continue going on in peace.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
It is getting to experience and be a part of something greater than myself. And I get to be an author in creating something beautiful. The act of creating brings so much life and joy! I couldn’t see myself doing anything else.
Contact Info:
- Website: lianaportraits.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/lianaportraits
- Facebook: facebook.com/lianaportraitsart
- Other: http://stillnessflows.com/
Image Credits
instagrams: @jawsomeeee @kierasview @nlowe1120 @jakirenai @seg.chainberland @beckyyyy_chambs @mirandaytbc @picanteamelia