10/07/2026
YOU ARE NOT TOO FAT TO BE IN PHOTOS.
I almost didn't post this. There are parts of my story that are easier to share from the other side of them. The after is easy. The before? Not so much. This isn't a post about about weight loss. It's a post about living your life out loud.
I recently got another call from a beautiful woman who cancelled her session. She didn’t make it to her goal weight. She just couldn’t face the camera. This is the track that repeats year after year, the broken record I have memorized. And suddenly, I'm compelled to share.
I get it. Completely. Been there done that: running ‘round the same stupid wheel, trying to hit goals, dropping balls, throwing in the towel, picking it up again. In fact, you won’t find a photographer more sensitive to this plight. You see…
BOTH these women are me. One version is comfortable in her own skin. The other hid behind her camera. I avoided being in photos because it felt like it was equivalent to documenting my failure and hanging it up to live forever in frames of shame. Even though my life’s work is seeing the beauty in others, my own reflection was muddled in dashed hopes, disappointment, dread. So I put off the photos. I told myself that eventually, one day, when I lost the weight, I would finally get in front of the camera.
And eventually I did. Over 100 pounds gone! But by the time ‘eventually’ finally came, my kids were mostly grown and out of the house. The result? I have hundreds of thousands of images of other people connecting with their children and husbands, the look of their love documented beautifully over disappearing years, and me? Well, I am missing in action from pretty much an entire decade of my life in photos. Literally in the first 14 years of being a photographer - I never had family photos. If there is any singular regret that supersedes them all - this is it.
Don’t wait on the sidelines of your life. I assure you, NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOUR SIZE BUT YOU. My husband loved me regardless of my jean size. The number on the scale did not matter to my kids. I was just their mom, the person who loves them most. Don’t wait for perfection. It might never come. And you will regret it down to your bones.
Instead, document your life. Frame your heart. Paper your walls in love. If not for you - do it for them. Let them remember every version of you, how you felt about them in that moment, your connection, your you. Teach them what love looks like. You hold the map, mom. Don’t you see? Ask your mama. Your husband. Your children. They will tell you what I see, every time I lift my lens: the way your eyes shine like the northern lights when you hold them in your arms. And one day those arms will empty out, so what are you waiting for?
If you’ve been putting off photos because you don’t feel ready yet, I understand - I was you. But you don’t need to lose the weight, look younger, become some future version of yourself before you deserve to exist in photographs.
And if you ever choose to trust me with that vulnerability, I will take care of you. I will protect you. Guide you. Photograph you with the same care I would have wanted for myself.
Come as you are. Your love fits in the frame, girl.
