Hi! I’m Lindley.
I’m a photographer, body liberation activist, writer, cat mom and houseplant collector. I’m into unicorns, the color teal and sour gummy candy. How about you?
Photography sets my soul on fire because through my work, people who don’t see bodies like theirs represented anywhere else get to reclaim their self image. It’s pretty amazing stuff.
Every Monday, I send out my Body Liberation Guide, a thoughtful email jam-packed with resources on body liberation, weight stigma, body image and more. And it’s free. Let’s change the world together.
Offerings
My story
I used to think that I was too fat* to be a professional photographer. I thought that no one would hire a fat photographer, that they’d laugh at the very thought. I never saw fat photographers, and I never saw fat people being beautifully and respectfully photographed.
From the safety of my corporate job, I watched people in thin bodies make other thin people’s dream images come true.
In 2014, I took the leap and trusted that fat folks would want a fellow fat person as their photographer, someone who understood both what it’s like to live in a similar body and how those bodies look and move.
I launched Body Liberation Photography and began photographing people in all sorts of larger and marginalized bodies. In 2015, I started Body Liberation Stock, a stock image website focused on depicting larger bodies, as well.
But much of my work at that time was still caught in the paradigm of “acceptable” bodies. Many of the poses and techniques I was taught while I was learning to photograph people are meant to minimize physical bodies and force them into meeting our current cultural beauty standards.
As I’ve grown in my own body acceptance and become a strong advocate for body liberation and fat liberation, I’m no longer willing to dance around trying to fit my clients and models into a mold that doesn’t serve them.
These days, I focus on capturing bodies as they exist in this moment — your joy, your light, your darkness, your story — without worrying about or catering to “flattering” or “attractive.”
No retouching. No hiding. No shame.
We’re going beyond beauty to liberation. Come join me. xo
*Like many other fat people, I’ve reclaimed the word “fat” as a neutral descriptor for large bodies, just like you might describe a person as “tall” or “brunette.”
My framework
I have the privileges of being a cisgender, straight white person. I live in the United States and, though I have a background of many generations of rural poverty, I currently have some financial privilege and a small safety net. I’m married and have a college education. Due to my safety net, I can pursue my small business full time.
Though I live with physical and mental chronic illnesses, I can pass for able-bodied. My very fat body appears slightly smaller than it is.
And finally, though I am oppressed for my body size, I am nowhere near the largest possible human body size. All of these factors make me more likely to be heard, hired, given opportunities and find open doors than someone without these privileges. It’s important that I keep this in mind every day and continue to find ways to center and give opportunities to people with fewer privileges than mine.
I live and work on land belonging historically to the Duwamish, Muckleshoot and Coast Salish peoples. I support the Duwamish tribal council monthly and you can, too.
I believe that…
folks who live in large bodies are just as valuable, beautiful, and worthy of being photographed as people in smaller bodies.
folks who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, non-binary queer, intersex, asexual, pansexual, polyamorous and every other wonderful variation of humanity should have access to nonbiased, supportive, beautiful photography.
trans women are women. trans men are men. period.
black lives matter.
there are no rules when it comes to photography. ANY person of ANY identity in ANY body deserves to feel beautiful, sensual and sexy without shame or fear.
anyone with a body is inherently beautiful, and that capturing that beauty in my work is a sacred trust.
you, too, are worthy of being photographed in exactly the skin you’re in today.
each curve and roll and angle of your body is beautiful and worthy of being celebrated.
people in large and very large bodies have aspects of their bodies that are not only beautiful, but uniquely so.
anyone from a marginalized or oppressed community deserves a safe, nonjudgmental place to be vulnerable and explore what beauty means to them.