All Bodies are Camera-Worthy Bodies with Lindley Ashline

 

Episode 85 - All Bodies are Camera-Worthy Bodies with Lindley Ashline

by Karin Lewis, MA, LMFT, CEDS

In this episode, I am joined by Lindley Ashline, photographer, author, cat mom, entrepreneur, musician and activist. Lindley 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 (body-positive stock images for commercial use) and the Body Love Shop (a curated resource for body-friendly products and artwork).

SOME OF THE TOPICS DISCUSSED:

  • The science of bodies in terms of weight

  • The fat acceptance community before body positivity

  • How the photography community does not serve individuals in marginalized bodies

  • Transforming your passion to activism

  • Exclusion of marginalized bodies and those who photograph marginalized bodies in the the photography industry

  • Aspirational versus realistic photography and the need to coach clients through the process of showing their true selves

  • Beauty standards as currency and power in our society

  • How the methods for pursuing beauty standards can be both expressive and oppressive

  • The difference between feeling bad about your body and being oppressed for your body

  • How big shifts in power often result in a big shift in beauty standards

  • Collective change as a means to push back against society’s beauty standards

  • The value in removing profit from the beauty industry

  • Reframing our body image stories

ABOUT LINDLEY ASHLINE:

Lindley Ashline fights weight stigma by giving people in large bodies 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 used to think that she was too fat to be a professional photographer. She thought that no one would hire a fat photographer, that they’d laugh at the very thought. From the safety of her corporate job, Lindley watched people in thin bodies make other thin people’s dream images come true.

In 2014, Lindley’s corporate job turned toxic, and she knew that she could make a difference elsewhere. Lindley took the leap and trusted that fat folks would want a fellow fatty as their photographer, someone who understood both what it’s like to live in a similar body and how those bodies look and move.

Lindley launched Sweet Amaranth (now Body Liberation Photography) and began photographing people in all sorts of larger bodies. In 2015, she started Representation Matters (now Body Liberation Stock), a stock image website focused on depicting larger bodies as well.

But much of her work at that time was still caught in the paradigm of “acceptable” bodies. Many of the poses and techniques Lindley was taught while she was learning to photograph people are meant to minimize physical bodies and force them into meeting our current cultural beauty standards.

As Lindley has grown in her own body acceptance and become a strong advocate for body liberation and fat liberation, Lindley is no longer willing to dance around trying to fit her clients and models into a mold that doesn’t serve them. These days, she focuses on capturing bodies as they exist in this moment — your joy, your light, your darkness, your story — with absolute minimal reference to “flattering” or “attractive.”

Lindley offers boudoir, portrait and small business photography sessions with Body Liberation Photos. She is also the creator of Body Liberation Stock, which provides body-positive stock photos for commercial use, and the Body Love Shop, a curated central resource for body-friendly artwork and products.

Lindley lives outside Seattle, WA with her spouse, feline overlord, “embarrassingly large washi tape collection” and houseplant jungle.