We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Judy Lee a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Judy , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.

One of the things I do differently than other photographers is to process their portraits with them in person using prints. Photographs can be such powerful tools for self-reflection and the process I take my clients on facilitates self-acceptance and self-love. The session experience involves three main steps starting with mentoring, then the portrait session day and finally the reveal. In the reveal, I present 20 prints total to clients reflecting different sides of them from their light to their shadows. We use their feelings and reactions to the portraits to deeply explore their feelings about themselves and where they may originate. Then I take them through exercises to address these feelings, helping them to understand themselves better and to seem themselves in a more holistic way rather than just good or bad.

The industry standard is to deliver photographs via digital gallery and while I do see the usefulness of this, I believe clients understanding how the photographer sees them can be powerful and healing.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

I am a Transformative Photographer and WomanSpeak Leader and I create experiences for women to embody radical self-acceptance, love and authentic expression. I truly believe all women possess a powerful, essential version of themselves that is hiding beneath layers of expectations and pressure to be perfect and to fit into an unrealistic ideal of what it means to be a woman. I believe that with safe spaces, women can learn to connect to their truest, most authentic selves and find self-love, trust and acceptance.

I came to this belief as a former perfectionist who struggled with self-loathing and unprocessed trauma and because of this, I’ve always hated pictures of myself. All of this changed when I discovered portrait photography and realized I had the power to capture a woman’s essence. I wanted to make a positive impact in women’s lives through photography and realized I could not fulfill this desire until I faced myself and all my perceived flaws and find my own true self and love for myself.

I do what I do because so many of us women are suffering with not good enough-ness and it is possible to live life differently with self-compassion and the realization that we have inherent worth.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

As a photographer, one of the things that can be anxiety inducing is presenting our work to clients, especially if we do portraiture for women. Whether women like photographs of themselves isn’t as simple as whether or not we’ve done a good job as photographers. It is dependent on how women feel about themselves, whether what you’ve captured about them is something they accept or reject about themselves, or what or who the portrait reminds them of… To me, this is the pain point that is the most valuable. I see it as an opportunity to help my clients explore and understand themselves further.

As a photographer, our own journey with ourselves is the most important of all. Our perspective and how capture our clients, and the experience we provide for them, is fueled by our experience of the world and how we see ourselves. Understanding who we are, why we see things the way we do and figuring out ways to share that with our clients in meaningful ways is what can help us find fulfillment and purpose.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

I started out as a family photographer when I fell into it after taking pictures of my son and sharing them. Friends eventually came calling and I started a photography business as a side hustle to my full time job as a mother. I never enjoyed doing it because I would be so filled with anxiety and constant striving for perfection. I would beat myself up if the photos weren’t technically perfect and spend unnecessary hours agonizing over editing much too many photos to present to clients in case they didn’t like them. I was afraid of promoting myself or even calling myself a photographer because I always felt like I was never good enough. The way I ran my business was a reflection of how I ran my life – of constantly pressuring myself to be perfect and always feeling inadequate and unworthy because I would fall short.

Everything changed when I discovered portrait photography. I just knew deep inside that it was what I was meant to do. It’s a gift that forced me to face myself, recognize my inherent worth and to learn to love myself and meet myself with self-compassion. This personal journey and my portrait photography journey are intimately tied because what I’ve learned to do for myself is how I learned to do it for my clients. Shifting from family to women’s portrait photography has been the most fulfilling experience of my life.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://judyleephotography.com
• Instagram: @judyleephotography
• Facebook: @judyleephotography