it started with selfies

A few days ago I was digging through an old external drive looking for something completely unrelated when I stumbled across this picture from my Selfie Queen Live workshop circa 2018. I also found the PDFs from the online course I’d made on the same topic. I sat there smiling for a long time. I'd completely forgotten about some of it. There were sections on lighting, posing, expression/connected, editing apps, settings...little sketches I'd made to explain angles. It immediately took me back to that season of my life, and I have such a soft spot for it.

One afternoon in particular came flooding back. I'd rented this beautiful bed and breakfast in downtown Hot Springs because the natural light was SO good. I remember laying out all their little workbooks at each of their place settings around a big, fancy dining room table. I kept arranging and rearranging and checking the clock. I wanted it to be perfect.

Then women started arriving.

Some came in solo (we love a courageous queen). Others walked in already chatting with a friend. Everybody was a little unsure of what they were walking into, prior to this Selfie Queen had been an online course only.

The plan was simple though... I wanted women to stop feeling defeated every time they opened the front-facing camera on their phone. That's really what Selfie Queen was.

I'd spent years figuring out how light changes a face, why certain angles feel better than others, why one photograph can make you feel incredible and another can make you question every life decision you've ever made AND I wanted to save women some of that trial and error. We talked about posing without looking stiff, editing without making yourself look like an entirely different human, clothes, expression, posture. It was practical. There was a lot of laughter. Somebody always made a joke about having a "good side," and I probably rolled my eyes and lovingly argued with them about it (still do that, btw)

Looking back now, I don't remember every tip I taught that day. I remember the way I FELT. I remember some of the conversations. At some point—and I honestly couldn't tell you exactly when—we quit talking about selfies.

Somebody said something vulnerable. I wish I could remember exactly what it was, but I can't. I just remember the feeling in the room changing. It was almost like everyone exhaled because one person had gone first. Then another woman shared something. Then another.

Nobody was trying to impress anybody. We were just...talking. If you know me at all, you know there are fewer things I enjoy more than begin with a woman or a group of women and us just TALKING. Ranting, sharing wisdom, laughing too loud.

Women were admitting the things they'd believed about themselves for years. They pointed to features they wished they could change. They laughed about the ridiculous things they'd convinced themselves were true.

I sat there listening and woke up. Every woman in the room thought she was carrying something unique.

She wasn't and I wasn't either.

The details were different, sure, but underneath all of it was this very familiar feeling that maybe we weren't quite enough as we were.

I'd spent so much of my life believing women were supposed to compete with each other. I don't even know where that belief came from. Maybe it came from magazines and movies (which were effing brutal in the 1990s-2000s, IYKYK) Maybe it was just in the air when I was growing up. Whatever the source, I'd accepted it without really questioning it.

That afternoon unraveled some old beliefs I’d carried for too long.

Because how do you compete with someone after they've trusted you with something tender? You don't.

You just love them. Or at least that's what happened to me.

I left that house thinking about women in a new light. I also left thinking about my own work differently.

At the time, I would've told you I was a photographer. Now, when I look back, I don't think photography was ever the only thing people came for.

I think they came because they wanted permission. Permission to stop apologizing for existing in photographs. Permission to believe they weren't the only woman who felt awkward in front of a camera. Permission to stop picking themselves apart every time they caught their reflection.

Back then, I had no idea I was laying the foundation for work that would eventually become The Iconic Year and The Iconic Circle. If someone had told me in 2018 that those little selfie workshops would shape the way I think about women, creativity, confidence, and community almost a decade later, I don't know that I would've believed them.

I just thought I was teaching people how to take better selfies. Life has a funny way of revealing what you were really building...only after you've walked far enough away to finally see it.