We were lucky to catch up with Leo Hall recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Leo thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

I’ve worked on many projects as a photographer, a filmmaker, and a magazine editor. So, it was hard to pick one particular project. I live in Nashville, TN, and back in 2006, a young woman was murdered. Her name was Tara Denise Cole and she was known as the “Homeless Girl”. Once the public found out her name, we contacted her family and wanted to tell her story because of the way she was murdered and how her circumstances brought her to being homeless. We took a small crew to meet her family. With their blessings, we produced a film, “Angel Unaware: The Tara Cole Story.” We won awards for the film, but most importantly, we brought awareness to the mental health issue in America and how mental health patients are treated in this country.

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?

I am a photographer, a filmmaker, a studio owner, and a magazine publisher. I got started in photography while in elementary school back in the 1970s. My father and uncle were photographers, and I would go on shoots with them to assist. I’ve always enjoyed photography and used it to meet people.

I became involved with filmmaking when my oldest sister worked for McDonald’s Corporation as part of their creative services. She would tell me about her travels working with different crews, picking up tidbits, and passing them along to me to help with my composition, framing, and learning how to tell a story with my pictures. I decided to try my hand as a filmmaker and did a couple of short films with local actors. That excitement grew into a passion, and I decided to start making full-length films. I produced two shorts and four features. You can look them up on YouTube.

While working on my last film, I met a doctor creating a fashion magazine that needed photographers. I submitted my work, and she signed me as one of her photographers. For three years, I would travel to different parts of the country, capturing fashion shots of models; one of these places was Pensacola Beach, Florida.

The magazine at that time had six staff photographers, and their business model started to change. So, in March 2020, I created Soiree Fashion Magazine. We had enough images to build the early issues of the magazine and then continued to travel to Pensacola and other cities as before to work with models.

Then, in April 2020, Covid-19 happened.

Fortunately, we had plenty of images that had never been published, and we used those to build our brand for the first year. In August 2020, we returned to Pensacola to start live photography with the models.

In November 2022, we opened our photo studio in Pensacola. Our original goal for the studio was to have a place to capture our magazine images, but we opened it up for local photographers to use.

That’s where we are now.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

In April 2023, I had a kidney transplant, which put me out of commission for four months. My studio was up and running, and the magazine was running, but I was detached because I could not travel to check on it. I was out of work during that time, yet I had to pay rent, studio bills, and payroll. I had to use my savings to carry through those months and maintain my household expenses. Once my doctors cleared me for safe travel (wearing proper PPE), I would fly down to Pensacola, check on my studio, set up small photo shoots, and then fly back home. I did this every month until we had enough material to continue publishing new materials for the magazine.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

I have three goals that drive my creative journey (1) To expand our brand, Soiree Fashion Magazine, into the different languages and areas of the world. I would love to grow internationally. (2) I am still writing scripts for films and would love to get back into filmmaking. Several oof the models I work with would make great actors and actresses, and I’d love to get them on the big screen. (3) I would like to open multiple studios for creatives nationwide. I travel a lot for photo shoots and if I could, I would open a studio in my favorite cities, not only for the magazine but for creatives to use, where it would not cost them so much money to be creative.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.soireefashionmagazine.com www.photographybyleohall.com
• Instagram: @photographybyleohall. and @soiree_magazine
• Facebook: Leo Hall

Image Credits
Rosaly Martinez, Madison Allenya, Brittany Boston, Kendra Luster, Angelica Habibi, Belle Baker, Ajiana Dailey, Zora Asberry