People always ask my why I got into photography… How I got started and what drives me to be a photographer…. The simple answer is “I love photography and taking beautiful empowering portraits of women.”
Here is the long answer…
I am 54 years old, a wife to an amazingly talented man (he’s an Architect), who is my biggest cheerleader, mom of two amazing boys and I am a single child of aging parents. I was born in Lima, Peru, grew up in Belgium, and speak three languages, including Spanish as that was my home language growing up. I moved to the U.S. in 1982 and to McAllen, Texas in 1999 for my federal job.
I’m now a portrait photographer specializing in modern women’s portraiture and family portraits and opened my business in 2019 at the age of 50! Yes, you read that right! FIFTY!
Did I have fear about starting a business in my 50’s? Hell yes! Would I be successful, would I be too old? Was I just an imposter trying to be a photographer like all the younger and more technical photographers out there? Did I know WHO I wanted to be as a photographer? Did I know WHY I wanted to be a photographer? I’m still figuring it out. And it’s been an amazing ride.
You see, I spent 21 years tapping into heavy masculine energy which was necessary for my last job. I had to be tough, logical, closed off, yet open, guarded yet trustworthy, a problem solver, a seeker of truths and falsehoods…
But the whole time I was channeling masculinity and toughness, I was not really that happy because I was not in true balance. As tough as I seemed to many women who know me, a female co-worker told me I was seen as “SOFT” by my coworkers... I felt shame. A deep shame. What a kick in the gut. It was everything I had tried to “stuff down.” I was not a VICTIM dammit. Not like the “other weak girls.” Everything that I hated in other women. Everything that I thought I was not. WOW. But I KNOW I was successful in many things I did BECAUSE I had a soft side about me. I was good at my job, and I think there was a lot of resentment that I could do the job and still be “SOFT.”
That comment changed my trajectory in life and I found myself feeling like an imposter. I didn’t belong because as much as I tried to be one of them, I craved to connect with my feminine side, but couldn’t and didn’t. I stopped caring about trying to be tough. And then…I eventually embraced my soft side, and boy did it make people uncomfortable! When I showed my tough side though, absolute shock. Who does she think she is? I learned to say “no” when things didn’t serve me. I learned to let go of the people who were uncomfortable with my new self. It’s that story when women grow up and realize what and who they are. It’s that story when women gain that wisdom that only women understand. If only I could go back and talk to my younger self about my journey.
The wives of the men I worked with didn’t accept me because I was “that” female co-worker. Women in my community (mom groups, neighbors, soccer and baseball moms, etc.) didn’t accept me either because I wasn’t like all the other women. Always polite, but distant, because maybe I wasn’t approachable. Was it fear? What I have learned through this experience is that…when we don’t like something about someone, it’s because we see our very own shortcomings in that person. We see the things we don’t like about ourselves. Maybe I despised softness because I saw that part of me in others and I had been trying SO hard to stuff that part away. I connected with softness, yet I was repulsed by it. Maybe my coworker pointed it out because it was her fear too. Her fear to be seen as soft. It was her truth, as it was mine. Maybe that is the commonality that all women share.
I think that was where my passion for photography started, I just didn’t know at the time that comment was my tipping point. I never forgave that comment or the coworker (because why did they think that would help me at the time to give me the biggest insult I could think of?), but I am thankful for it. Sometimes you need to hear the truth, even though it hurts, in order to grow. (Ironically, my own mom thinks I’m too harsh, too tough…but that’s for another blog entry)
When I had my youngest son at the age of 43, I realized that I needed to be the “old me” again. I also decided I needed a. hobby and I needed to start thinking about the rest of my life and what I wanted to do with it. And yet, because I was conditioned to believe that being feminine, emotional and soft was a bad thing, I had despised what I saw as weak and feminine “girly-girls” who didn’t stand up for what they believe in, who were subservient in any way or used their physical appearance to get ahead (cause I was always driven to be intelligent and independent), and couldn’t make a decision on their own. I had a boss tell me I was too emotional. I was pissed. (I think we women can show emotion and still be good at what we do, … another blog post! ha)
I now realize that in my journey to be this tough person, I lost my way, I lost my divine feminine. I have come to realize that I photograph women in the way that I want to be seen, desirable, confident, naturally beautiful, fierce, and mostly and above all-feminine and SOFT. And now, I get to meet women who come from all walks of life; many of them survivors of trauma, warriors in their own right. Tough women and SOFT women. Women I would have previously seen as “girly-girls” and victims, and wow, I am so incredibly blessed to know these women and wish every day I could be more like them.
My journey of self-discovery continues and I’m glad you are on it with me! It is YOU who teach ME more about myself.
Hope to see you soon in my studio!
XOXO Nicole