Those of you who joined in on the Instagram live last night will already know what type of women Lisa is…….
I could simply stop at saying ‘an amazing one’ however that’s not going to be a very good blog post is it?
I already knew what I wanted to say, the chat we had was to cross my t’s and dot my i’s.
You see, Lisa is an empathetic, strong willed, independent, loud (but in the most subtle way) character that keeps her cards close to her chest. You know (you just know) that she’s been through some shit. It’s obviously made her who she is today but it’s not something she’s overly quick to share. From the outside it feels like that’s because she keeps things personal to herself but also because she doesn’t want to burden anyone with her story. I could be massively wrong. She’ll tell me if I am.
A married mum of 1 (along with the best boy dachshund, Ben) it feels like she has never lost herself with those titles of wife and mum, but actually found herself in the process of gaining them.
An OG Tik Tok follower on my very first account (RIP account) her name was everywhere we turned. The account had over 65k followers and had A LOT of interaction, so for me it was hard to remember who I had talked to and who had interacted with the page, except I always remembered Lisa. Even when her booking came through I recognised her name.
Her shoot was in feb 2022 (a lifetime ago) and as she says she came just as things were catching on fire. We couldn’t keep up with the amount of bookings that came in, it was almost unbelievable and my memories of Lisa will always be intertwined with that period of growth for the business.
What made it even more special was that she was one of the first couple of plus sized gals to grace my camera. She calls herself fat. It’s just a descriptive word, however for the people that skim read and think it’s me who is calling her fat (a PR nightmare, am I right?! 😉) I’m going to continue to use the term plus size. Plus, google loves that term (hello algorithm!!)
She was a breathe of fresh air. With her ‘share whatever you want’ and her divine fierce facial features and curves to die for, it was just the best concoction I could have ever asked for.
However, she hasn’t always been this way. She says…… it has taken her a lot to stop looking like other people want her to look. To stop caring what others think, or say.
Pre 2019 Lisa is a very different Lisa to the one today, she says that that lisa wouldn’t even recognise her.
She had her gorgeous son Reuben in 2019 and her mental health fell off a cliff. There was a point where she almost wasn’t here. She had support from her husband and health visitor but it’s clear it was a very dark time and much like with many others who present themselves in a certain upbeat way, it’s hard to imagine her going through that hard time.
Along with the post natal depression, she also was suffering with anxiety and severe lack of sleep. She says she just couldn’t sleep from The fear of losing her son. It took her a while to get the appropriate medication and whilst it’s clear she’s in a much better place in life it’s also feels that that period of time is still lingering slightly and if that’s the case, rightly so. Reuben is only 3, it’s been no time at all.
Dealing with isolation from the actual world during the pandemic, along with the mental exhaustion from what was going on in her head. She relays it in such a soft way ‘there was a time I was very nearly not here’ but let’s not sugar coat it. Being on the brink of suicide is life changing.
A true warrior if I ever met one.
So why a boudoir shoot? Well she’d been wanting to do one for a while and she says that anything her mother Wouldn’t approve of is an added bonus (I think we can all relate to that) and since then she has participated in a couple shoot for me when I needed a couple for marketing purposes. A family beach shoot and a family Christmas shoot.
I’ll never take for granted her warmth, support and positivity at the start of my business. I’m not sure she realises how pivotal the timing of her shoot and consent to sharing was.
Someone I’ll always remember and choose to never forget.
#boudoirphotography #boudoirphotographer #bodypositivity #plussize #confidence #womenempowerment #scottishphotographer #robynallan #robynsboudoirphotography