Meet Jessie Santala

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jessie Santala.

Jessie, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I have always loved taking photographs. The first photo I ever took was when I was only four years old. It was taken on a film camera and I can’t believe that my parents let me use it at that age, but they must have trusted me because they handed it over and let take a photo. It’s a photo of my parents and my newborn sister and my dad’s head isn’t even in it, but my mom saved it and put it in our family album.

In college, I bought a nice film camera on a whim and started to play with it. I was hooked and even though I didn’t know much about how the camera worked when I got it, I think all of that experimenting with light and film helped me better understand the technical side of photography. I was also a youth leader at that time and as my students graduated, I would offer to do their Senior Portraits as a gift. Soon they started referring their friends I started to charge modest fees, just enough to cover the cost of film and developing.

My business started to take off thanks to people’s recommendations and I said “yes” to any kind of session I was presented with because I didn’t know any better. Many of my “yeses” felt like mistakes at the time because I didn’t end up enjoying them, but looking back, I can see that they were the best learning experiences. I learned that I’m not good at all styles of photography and I learned what kinds of sessions make my heart “sing.” All those “yeses” lead to feel burned out eventually and I started thinking about putting down my camera for good.

When my babies were born in 2016, I gladly took a step back from photography. It felt nice to have an excuse to take a break, but after a couple of years, I wanted to start taking sessions again. Partially because I missed having an artistic outlet and partly because, as a stay at home mom, I was looking for ways to get out of the house and do something for myself. I had taken such a long break from photography though that I didn’t really know where to start. So I started taking portraits of my babies and I signed up for a photography class with Joy Prouty. Joy helped me find my passion for photography again and also helped me to hone in on what kinds of photography I find the most delight in.

Today, I’m still a stay at home mom, but I also have a wonderful client base… people that I consider friends. I still don’t do much marketing (I don’t even have a website) because my primary focus is raising my kids, but my clients have been so generous about recommending my work to others that I stay pretty busy with photography.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
It has not been a smooth road at all. I have said yes to too many sessions that I didn’t have a passion for and have regretted it almost immediately. My work suffers if I take on a project that my heart isn’t into. Also, I have often felt like an impostor in my industry. I’m self-taught and have had to work really hard to learn how to use my camera and how to edit well. It is so easy these days to compare your work to others and come up short, to compare yourself to others and feel like you aren’t enough. Instagram can either be a source of great inspiration or it can make you want to quit and never pick up your camera again. I have to remind myself that I have a place in our industry and that, even though I am not the best photographer, I still have something of value to offer.

I have found a wonderful group of photographers though who create beautiful work but who also lift up their fellow photographers. They have been such a great source of encouragement to me and I am a better person and artist because of their investment.

We’d love to hear more about your work.
I am primarily a family portrait photographer. I love documenting families as they are; playful, loving, funny, sweet. There’s nothing like being able to capture that authentic interaction between people who genuinely love each other and enjoy being together. Since becoming a mom, I have developed a soft spot for photographing mamas and their babies. There is nothing else like that bond, no matter how old your “babies” are.

I am also passionate about empowering women through individual portrait sessions. I feel strongly that every woman should have a chance to see how beautiful they are, but also what badasses they are! (Am I allowed to say “badass”?) Women are so hard on themselves and yet, every single woman I know is incredibly capable, beautiful and STRONG. Every woman is beautiful. Every woman is worthy. As a woman myself, I know how hard it can be to drown out the narrative that we are not enough. But we are all fearfully & wonderfully made and we deserve to celebrate our uniqueness and our strength. I consider it such an honor to have a female client show up and allow herself to be seen. It is scary and vulnerable and so I consider it one of the great honors of my life when women trust me enough to step in front of my camera.

If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
If I had to start over, I hope that I would spend less time on comparing my work to others and more time focusing on my own craft. I think I wasted a lot of time, energy and effort trying to make my work look like someone else’s because I didn’t trust my own capacity to create or I didn’t feel like my work was good enough on its own. It took me a long time to be confident in my abilities as a photographer and an even longer time to feel comfortable saying that I am an artist.

Contact Info:

• Email: J.Santala@yahoo.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/j.santalaphotography/

Image Credit:
J.Santala Photography

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