Meet Laura

We were lucky to catch up with Laura recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Laura, really happy you were able to join us today and we’re looking forward to sharing your story and insights with our readers. Let’s start with the heart of it all – purpose. How did you find your purpose?

Arts and my Faith have been the perfect combination to find my purpose. I always understood that I was part of something much bigger than me and for that reason I needed to pursue my calling and Mission on that puzzle! There was a very hard time in my life when I found out I was in depression. – “Me? a person full of life and energy?” – yes… me… I had tried to be strong for such a long time that didn’t realize I had been postponing myself. At that time I decided to find a new hobby… so I bought a camera and started to find beauty in the small things. That definitely helped me a lot and gave me “new eyes” to see reality. After some years, my oldest son was diagnosed with depression and OCD. That was even worse. More than ever I felt I needed to do something while I was helping him because I still had 2 more kids, my husband and my house to balance daily. At that moment I could see other women who were also in pain and felt “unseen”. I created an online community called “My New Self Community” to motivate them to be their best version no matter what. years later I thought… “why not combine my coaching program with my photography skills and from that “My New Self session” started. An empowering photo session designed for women to help them realize their own beauty and see themselves through my eye/lens.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

As you can see my approach with Photography is more than PICTURES… it is CAPTURING your ESSENCE, your own NATURAL BEAUTY!!

We have different sessions where they can have different experiences, one of my favorites is:

“ESTA SOY YO” (“This is Me”): the idea is to RECONNECT with the woman I am now – after gaining some weight or wrinkles. Maybe after a treatment for an illness or a hard situation like DIVORCE. We say RECONNECT because we can see how much DISCONNECTION we have with who we USED TO BE to the person we are now. Many women say “I feel UNCOMFORTABLE in my own body” – my part is to guide that woman through that process so she can start making peace with the image on the mirror.

We created “This is me” events for 10 women. They are like mini-retreats (around 3 hours) where they are exposed to the woman on the mirror and let those emotions speak. As I mentioned before I guide them and they come to a point where they start RECOGNIZING and showing APPRECIATION to themselves. At the end we have a PHOTO SESSION : in group first and then individual. Definitely a BEFORE and AFTER experience.

Right now we are preparing ourselves for a Coffee time together with 16 ladies where we are going to prepare for our next year and will work on our PURPOSE!!

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

i believe 3 things helped me during my whole life:

1. I never liked to feel sorry for myself in any circumstance
2. I needed to transform my “mess into my message”
3. I asked myself “how could I help others” who maybe are experiencing something like me.

My advice is: to believe that there is MORE! and you can be part of something bigger than you!!

How would you spend the next decade if you somehow knew that it was your last?

i would give meaning to every day of my life. I would try to serve as much women as possible through my business/ calling and would try to leave a legacy by creating a movement of women who would believe in this idea!!

Contact Info:

• Website: working on that
• Instagram: @laurafernandezphotography. @estasoyyousa
• Other: TikTok: estasoyyousa

Image Credits

Those images are mine Laura Fernandez Photography.