Meet Jessica Lass

We recently connected with Jessica Lass and have shared our conversation below.

Jessica , so good to have you with us today. We’ve always been impressed with folks who have a very clear sense of purpose and so maybe we can jump right in and talk about how you found your purpose?

For as long as I can remember I have seen the world with compassion and curiosity. I noticed every detail from the very large to the very tiny about everything and everyone around me. Being immersed in the beauty of the natural world, art and words made me feel alive and present. As a child, I dealt with trauma and fear by escaping into those worlds. When I was 10, I saved box tops and purchased my own film camera – literally the size of a roll of film. My first experiences with photography were setting up toys in the grass and making “scenes”; later, I dressed my little sister and her friends up and turned them into models, whether they liked it or not! I went to college for Fine Art, married young and didn’t really realize I was still pursuing my passions. As a stay at home mom to 4 boys under 8, I found it almost impossible to break out paints and take the time to create, so I picked my camera back up. It gave me the opportunity to make instant art. 3 years after our youngest son was born, we felt the calling to international adoption. The amount of funds we would need to bring our daughter home was almost overwhelming. I needed to feel like I was involved and was contributing – so I started taking sessions for donations. By the time we brought our daughter home from Russia in 2012, I realized I had inadvertently started a business. My business has never been as much about bringing in cash as it has been about blessing others and making art. That compassion and curiosity I have always had toward the world and my own knowledge of how it feels to be truly seen, allows me to catch moments and emotions that families don’t even realize are happening. Along with international adoption, my heart is for families and children that are undergoing difficult diagnosis’s. It’s in the very difficult moments that I can use what I’ve been given to bless a family with the gift of preserving this moment for them.
Along with photography, part of my purpose has been to encourage and walk alongside moms. As part of that ability to observe, I was very very young when I wondered if my mom had support and if someone truly knew and saw us, if things would be different. While my focus and heart has always been for children, I realized that walking alongside a mom and really seeing her and her family WAS the best thing I could do to protect and help children. I lead a mom’s group (Mom’s Understanding God’s Grace) that focuses on walking along each other and offering tangible support.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

Since 2012 I have slowly learned and expanded my business – as my kids have grown, I have found more time to pursue what I love. While I cover senior portraits, lifestyle newborns, weddings and families, my true focus and passion has always been on observing and documenting relationships. While I always get a “Christmas card” pose, the majority of my sessions are much more documentary style and revolve around interaction and observation. Light, storytelling and color are themes that often make their way into my work.
Each member of the family reacts and interacts differently with each other and I love to find those individualities. I tell moms I wear their “mama goggles” for them. Discovering someone’s beauty and letting them see how I see them is one of my favorite things about my job! Whether it’s personality or a physical attribute, approaching each client with the curiosity to want to know and portray their story in this particular moment is what drives my style and approach.
At the core of photography is being asked to come into someone’s very personal and private life – whether it’s a senior about to graduate, a couple on their wedding day or a snuggling a newborn baby. I will never stop feeling honored that someone would trust me to step into that space.
My very favorite sessions to do are what I call Courage Sessions. Adoption (especially International) and diagnosis’s that rock a family’s world are often the time a family is least likely to seek or afford photos and yet, those moments are pivotal in their lives. Offering families that tangible gift is one of the blessings of working for my passion and not my business. At the end of the day, if I feel I have blessed someone with something irreplaceable, that is worth far more than dollars.
MUGGs has been a huge part of what I do – just giving moms a safe space to walk together and facilitating relationships impacts families in ways I will never completely know. From infant death and loss, to cancer and struggling relationships, so many women are carrying burdens and have no one to walk alongside them or even truly see what they are going through. My own story of trauma and then parenting children with food allergies, ADHD, trauma and educational differences has given me a unique viewpoint that allows me to create a space for the stories of other moms. That in turn, carries over to the way I interact at sessions, both with families and individuals.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

Immediately, my first thought is the desire to learn and grow. That has been a pivotal part of my journey. There so many resources today! I have to stop myself from trying to get ALL of the information. My downtimes are perfect to intake that knowledge base and then pursue models to create without pressure and actually turn the information into application. Model calls and continuing education also help me relieve burnout and feel like I am creating for me.
Curiosity about people, the world, stories…often drive my sessions. I want each client to leave feeling like they have been genuinely seen. Sometimes that means chatting in the parking lot for an hour after a session because a mom needs to talk and feel supported or we’re genuinely connecting and I don’t want to break that off. Our world is becoming less curious. We are more likely to stamp our judgment on someone simply because they fit in a certain “camp” (politics ,anyone?) than to see them as a person and want to know and understand them. That quality has impacted everything I do in both my business and the group I lead.
Lastly, I feel like my ability to pivot is a quality that keeps me from getting stressed at a session or wedding and often leads me to moments I might otherwise miss. Obviously, being tied to a studio doesn’t work for me. Curveballs and missed timelines and taking deep breaths with a bride in a crisis are not easy if you’re a perfectionist, but seeing the imperfection as an opportunity instead of a curse, is a gift not only to me, but to my clients.
Early on, I read a blog from a photographer I admired. She pointed out that we need to rock what we’ve got. Too many times we get focused on having the “right” gear or the right location or the right (fill in the box). There is a beauty to working with what you have and making it work for you. At the time I was bemoaning the old digital Canon I had, but also wasn’t in a place to replace it with better. That was pivotal advice for me; I worked that old camera til I was using every ounce of technology it offered. We like to say it’s not the technology, but the eye of the viewer, however, we rarely actually embrace that idea. We need to change that!

All the wisdom you’ve shared today is sincerely appreciated. Before we go, can you tell us about the main challenge you are currently facing?

The last decade, health has been a constant obstacle. For the last 25 years I have tried to find answers to medical issues I was having. I was often faced with doctors who either didn’t believe my symptoms were real or had no interest in finding the root cause. I fired so many doctors over a decade and had zero answers or relief. About 6 years ago I became so debilitated that I had to stop taking weddings. It was truly a terrifying time. I was losing my short term memory, barely dragging myself around day to day and unable to even transfer information correctly. I finally found a doctor that made the slightest dent in my symptoms and that led me to start pursuing an answer and advocating for myself. That led me to a doctor that truly changed my life. When I walked into my appointment and she asked what was going on I lost it. It was the first time I actually felt like I had someone on my side. 6 years later I have multiple diagnoses including pancreatic insufficiency, some pretty gnarly vitamin deficiencies (causing fun things like depression and anxiety attacks), hypercortisolism, Hashimoto’s, along with a whole pile of others. The most recent obstacle came when I started to lose my vision due to early onset macular degeneration and ocular rosacea. That might be the most terrifying one I have faced so far (ok so memory is, but it’s a close second). The very real concept that I could be going blind when so much of what I and what drives me is observation and beauty I can SEE, is a fear I’m not sure I’m ready to face.
In part because western medicine failed me for so long, much of what I am doing is treatment through what I choose to put in my body and trying to move. I will be on prescriptions my entire life for some of my diagnoses, but living the highest quality life I can will allow me to pursue my passions as long as possible.
When you have invisible illnesses, others often can not see what you’re dealing with on a daily basis. It’s crucial to keep moving and looking outward. Depression and anxiety are always right there. But the worst thing you can do is to give up. If I start having a pity party, the temptation is to not stop. Keeping my passion alive, feeling like I am making a difference in the lives of others or bringing a moment of happiness to them that I know they will hang on their wall and relive every time they pass it – that’s medicine in and of itself.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.1000wordsphotographybyjessica.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/say1000wordsphotography
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/say1000wordsphotography
• Other: https://www.facebook.com/RACMUGGS