How I became a photographer
How Did I Become A Boudoir Photographer?
I get asked this question a lot.
If you had told my high school self that one day I’d be empowering others through photography, I wouldn’t have believed you. Back then, I thought I wanted to be an artist, capturing the beauty of nature and selling prints. I had spent years with a camera or video recorder in hand, dreaming of something creative.
But life had other plans.
I became pregnant before graduating high school, and my home life with my mother was already rocky. On my 18th birthday, I was kicked out. It was summer, and I had one more year of school to finish. I spent months homeless, trying to figure out how to survive, until an elderly couple took pity on me. They gave me a place to stay, somewhere close to my job at Waffle House, so I could graduate. Just before winter, my boyfriend and I found out we were expecting.
My childhood was filled with shame, guilt, and abuse. The only true comfort I ever knew was from my granny. I never felt pretty. I was never held, never told I was loved. Instead, I was mocked for my looks, my size, my pale skin. If I made a mistake, I paid for it physically.
That boyfriend I mentioned gave me two beautiful children and more abuse. Somewhere along the way, I lost photography. I lost compassion. I lost self-love.
Fast forward a few years. I had my third child, got married, got divorced in nine months, and spent years trying to figure out where I had gone wrong.
Then, after months of being divorced, I reconnected with Ryan.
Ryan saw me. The broken pieces, the jagged edges. And he stayed. He gave me space to grow and heal. He never tried to fix me. He simply sat with every version of me that came and went, loving me through it all. He never doubted me, never let me give up.
In 2016, after years of pushing my creativity aside, he convinced me to pick up my camera again.
I spent a year photographing anything and everything, testing the waters. Then one day, I found a boudoir photographer in Toledo, Ohio. I booked a consultation, hoping to do a session for Ryan, to see myself through a different lens, to reclaim something I had lost. At my heaviest weight, 215 pounds, I walked into that studio, vulnerable but determined.
I left in tears.
He had no examples of women my size. He wanted to cake my face in makeup, hiding my freckles and my realness. He dismissed my ideas and my vision for my shoot. I felt like my childhood self all over again. Fat. Ugly. Unworthy. Not normal.
That day, I made a decision.
I told Ryan, "I want to do what he does, but better."
I wanted to create a space where people could come as they are, unapologetically. Where no one would be forced into a mold that wasn’t theirs. A safe space.
For the past eight years, I have cried. I have tried to give up. I have cried until I threw up. But I am still here, still fighting, still creating, still reminding people and myself that we are worthy. Not because of how we look, but simply because we exist.
My name is Ash, and I am your Ohio Goth Photographer, your Coach, your Friend, your Guide, and your biggest hype girl.
I would love to have you in our Facebook Community! Click here to join.
