Lindley Ashline (pronounced LIN-lee, she/her) creates photographs that celebrate the unique beauty of bodies that fall outside conventional “beauty” standards. She fights weight stigma by giving fat people a safe place to explore how their bodies look on camera and by increasing the representation of fat bodies in photography, advertising, fine art and the world at large.

Lindley is also the creator of Body Liberation Stock and the Body Love Shop, a curated resource for body-friendly products and artwork.

Why photograph fat people?

Our culture sets a very narrow range of “acceptable” bodies and punishes those who fall outside it.

This narrow ideal affects us. A recent study found that “70% of teen girls agreed that magazines strongly influenced what they thought was the ideal body type.” Also, “Numerous correlational and experimental studies have linked exposure to the thin ideal in mass media to body dissatisfaction, internalization of the thin ideal, and disordered eating among women.”

I think every body on the planet is beautiful and worthy just as it exists today. That’s why I’m channeling my 15 years of photography experience into creating stunning portraits of non-mainstream bodies, particularly curvy and full-figured women. I work with people of all sizes, genders, orientations, ability levels, and ethnicities. I have a natural gift for finding the unique beauty in every person and making them feel comfortable, safe and empowered.

This kind of judgment-free approach is extraordinarily rare in the crowded photography market. In fact, I’m so committed to this approach that unlike most portrait photographers — who do heavy skin retouching and routinely make their clients look thinner by using tricks like the Photoshop ‘liquefy’ tool — the only retouching I do is light skin smoothing, very subtle blemish removal and a few tweaks to make clients’ eyes come alight in the final images.

If you’d like to chat further about my work and my body positive approach, I’d be delighted! I’m available for interviews and follow-up questions as well. You can reach me by any of the methods below.

Sincerely,
Lindley Ashline

Complete Press Kit

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Company Information

• Launched: August 2015
• Owner: Lindley Ashline
• Brands: Body Liberation Photos, Body Liberation Stock, The Body Love Shop

Contact Information

• Email: [email protected]
• Facebook: Body Liberation Photos
• Instagram: @bodyliberationwithlindley
• Twitter: @lindleyashline
• Website: https://bodyliberationphotos.com

Company Profile

Body Liberation Photos

Body Liberation Photos is a Seattle, WA-based portrait, boudoir and stock photography studio. Photographer Lindley Ashline helps large-bodied and fat people of all genders reclaim their bodies with stunning body-positive portrait, boudoir and small business branding and visuals photo shoots. These sessions range from 60-minute boudoir sessions to far-flung, day-long sessions in the beautiful Washington state wilderness.

What makes Body Liberation Photos different is Lindley’s grounding and ethical foundation in body acceptance. Her commitment to respecting and elevating all bodies leads her to seek out clients and models who have what might be called “non-mainstream” or underrepresented bodies and ethnicities such as large bodies, LGBTQIAP+ and people of color. This commitment means that people of all sizes, shapes, colors and backgrounds are truly welcomed — not just tolerated — and that the poses clients are coached through are designed for each unique body.

Body Liberation Stock

With the advent of online stock image galleries over a decade ago, stock images have become ubiquitous. Almost every serious photographer tries stock photography as a way to earn money from their work. Major competitors in the market — such as Shutterstock and Getty’s iStock — offer the work of contributors as well as in-house photographers and illustrators.

We’re all familiar with stock photos like the group of smiling “businesspeople” that includes one Asian woman, one black man and three white men, all thin and able-bodied. These images have become cliches for a reason: Stock photographers almost exclusively use models and TV-show-style sets to replicate real-life environments, resulting in images that fail to reflect their real-world counterparts.

When photographers only use trained models in their images, they draw from an extremely small and homogenous pool of “acceptable” bodies. These images in turn form a body of work that we see reflected everywhere: in advertisements, on blogs and media sites, and in magazines.

Body Liberation Stock was created as a rejection of these cultural narratives.

Body Liberation Stock gives small business owners a way to represent the real bodies and lives of their readers in their marketing and on websites and social media. It contains Lindley’s own photography as well as photos and illustrations from a growing number of contributors, making diverse and body positive artwork accessible and affordable while paying contributors a living wage.

What makes Body Liberation Stock different is Lindley’s grounding and ethical foundation in body acceptance. Her commitment to respecting and elevating all bodies leads her to seek out clients and models who have what might be called “non-mainstream” or underrepresented bodies and ethnicities such as plus sizes, LGBTQIAP+, and people of color. This commitment means that people of all sizes, shapes, colors and backgrounds are truly welcomed, not just tolerated.

Lindley also seeks out artists from diverse and less privileged backgrounds to contribute work to the site. Unlike contributors to the large, mainstream stock image sites, who receive royalty payments of 15-35% of sales, Body Liberation Stock contributors receive 50-60% royalties, helping provide a living wage for these artists.

The Body Love Shop

The Body Love Shop features curated fat-positive and body-positive crafts and artwork from marginalized and fat artists, plus goods and products for living in a larger body, including:

• Original artwork
• Fine art photographs
• Stickers, buttons and enamel pins
• Books on Health at Every Size (HAES), intuitive eating, body acceptance, body positivity, eating disorders and fat studies
• Body image coloring books and workbooks for both children and adults
• Self-care, medical, healthcare and other tools and devices such as large blood pressure cuffs
• Fat-friendly and high-weight-limit furniture

Logos and Sample Work

Download sample pack [Zip]

Portfolio

See full portfolio

Products & Services

Services

• Lifestyle portrait photo sessions
• Boudoir photo shoots
• Headshots
• Combined portrait/headshot sessions for small business owners (used for websites and social media profiles), otherwise known as small business branding or visuals
• Stock photos
• Fine art prints

Products

• Diverse, inclusive and body positive stock photography and illustrations
• Digital and printed images
• Luxury albums
• Heirloom folio box (holds matted prints)
• The Body Love Shop, a resource for body-positive goods and artwork

Reviews & Testimonials

“I would say that Lindley is the most amazing photographer. Her fun, upbeat and positive spirit puts her clients at ease. And she is able to find and draw out each person’s inner beauty in her photos. Just go for it! It is totally worth it and splurge a little and go for the hair and makeup!”

“If you are in the Seattle Area and looking to capture your, Confidence, Radiance, Vulnerability, and Strength on Film, then please contact Sweet Amaranth. She’s more than just a photographer, she becomes your friend and helps to unlock your inner Goddess. Thank you, Lindley.”

“Lindley is a photographer who specializes in photographing plus-size women. I was completely psyched to find such a talented photographer who also has a body positive approach.”

“Earlier this month my wife and I got the opportunity to work with Lindley Ashline in a photoshoot for her amazing growing business, Body Liberation Stock. She is so talented! The work she is doing brings body positive, diverse, and fun photos to the stock photo market and will ultimately result in a better representation of ‘real’ people in things like marketing ads, business tools, and social media posts. We were both so grateful to be a part of her mission. Thanks for the great experience, Lindley!”

“I’m proud to be a part of this project. The photographer is a talented individual who is changing the landscape of current stock photos with DIVERSITY. WE are all unique, we are all beautiful, we are worthy, we are our truest selves. Take a look, and share with those who are looking for that diversity.”

“My husband and I posed for stock photos. I signed us up partly because I wanted to get past my dislike of having my photo taken. Several hundred snaps later I think I may be desensitized smile emoticon:-) The day was seriously cold but we had a lot of fun. Score one for body positivity!”

“You’re amazing! You’re incredible! What you’re doing makes me SO HAPPY!!!”

“I’m a blogger and a fat woman who searches stock photo sites for plus size women. I want to pay for the photos I use and wish it wasn’t so difficult to find the images I need.”