Do Not Delete

A little gossip, a big reveal, and the photos I almost never showed anyone.

You wouldn’t believe this week if I told you.
But I will, because what’s summer without a little gossip around the campfire?

Let me get you caught up.

Photo Vogue, yes, that Vogue, the one I wrote about here (and yes, I still stand by every word) just wrapped a global open call for women photographers and videographers. The theme? Women by Women, (Eep! It’s perfect - I know. I’m getting to that).

The prompt was an open invitation to show what it looks like when women tell their own visual stories, we define feminine visibility through our own lens. When we choose to be how we want to be seen and for whom.

The tea? PhotoVogue just reported closing their biggest open call ever with a total of 95,000 submissions by 9,500 artists. And over 240 of them? From this community. From us. That’s not a tiny ripple. That’s a surfable (I would imagine) wave.
And this time, it’s not crashing over us, it’s carrying us forward.

And honestly? It was like they pulled the theme straight from my camera roll.

As someone who’s spent the last four years helping women do exactly that through photos, through practice, through fear, through some serious stubborn self-recognition, I didn’t hesitate and I knew exactly what to say. I sent out the rally cry to my community, reminded them who they were and yes this was indeed for them, and submitted my own portfolio within hours.

And now I’m going to show it to you.
Every single photo I sent in.
(Well, the PG versions anyway. For the rest, light your candles and charge your crystals and we’ll see what Vogue decides.)

But first, a little backstory...

I used to think feeling good about how you looked was reserved for other people. You know the ones, with the ability to look candid and cool in group photos without ever looking so very out of place. (See this post for implied tall girl angst) Or the most enviable ones of all, the girls who look completely at home in their own skin.

Meanwhile, I was giving Addams Family energy in the family photo. And not in the cute Wednesday way. One year I insisted on wearing a black-and-white vertically striped shirt and debuted an asymmetrical bob that felt very fashion-forward at the time. It was not.

I grew up on teen magazines like a good Gen-Xer, the dreamy, glossy kind that promised a better life if you just found the right lip gloss. Teen Vogue, YM, Sassy (my first love. Shout out to

Jane Pratt

). I borrowed Cosmopolitan and

Allure magazine

from my mom when she wasn’t looking, fully convinced they held the secrets to being grown and glamorous. It did not.

Still, I memorized those editorials. The poses. The expressions and the way those women seemed to know something about themselves that I didn’t.

So no, this didn’t start with the camera.

It started with the belief that someone like me wasn’t allowed to take up that kind of visual space. That photos, “good” ones, were for other girls, not for me. While I could cobble a version of myself that looked the part on paper, across a room, when it came to photos? They always told the truth I didn’t want to admit. The truth that I didn’t feel like myself. Not really.

Because inside? I was comparing myself to every woman in the room and falling woefully short. Even when I looked the part, I never quite felt it. The image I projected and the way I actually experienced myself… they never fully matched.

For me, it was about self-recognition. That quiet moment when you catch your reflection and think: oh, there I am. Turns out that doesn’t just arrive one day or even after 45 years.

One afternoon in my bedroom, I caught my own reflection and barely recognized myself. I looked fine -technically. But I felt hollow, like the version of me I’d cobbled together had finally outpaced the one I actually knew.

And a new thought landed: If not now, when?
When will I stop outsourcing my confidence to a rare good hair day or a compliment from Guy the Trader Joe’s checker?

So I did something that felt completely sadistic at the time:

I decided to take photos of myself every day for 30 days, or until I could start feeling something other than the low-grade shame and self-consciousness I felt all the time.

The first week? Brutal.

I couldn’t take a single photo without a frustrated spiral of self-loathing; jawline, posture, the way my eyes looked when I wasn’t smiling, all terrible, all the worst. Delete, delete, delete. And every time I reached for that button, my whole body reacted. My heart would pound. My cheeks would flush. Sweat gathered under my arms like I’d just sprinted into traffic. It wasn’t just uncomfortable, it was a visceral full-body trauma response.

Yes, I know what you’re thinking: Lisa. Girl. Why didn’t you just… stop?
Honestly? I might be allergic to quitting. Or sanity. TBD.

Because I’ve always kept going. That’s the legacy of growing up with instability, with alcoholism you stay in motion, you disconnect from your feelings. You figure it out and keep it together at all costs. Call it resilience. Call it obsession. (I’ve been called worse.) But those photos became a daily dare. Maybe it wasn’t healthy. But it was honest. And in a life built on performing okay-ness, honesty felt like a relief.

Something was finally happening of my choosing. I chose this. I chose myself.

So I flipped the camera. Out of selfie mode. Set it on the dresser, the windowsill, a stack of books. Hit the shutter again and again, sometimes dozens of times, hoping one would feel tolerable.

And I did not let myself delete. Even when I wanted to claw my skin off.

Instead, I sat. Sometimes for hours. Sweat cooling, breath slowing, eyes scanning. I studied each photo like a crime scene. My posture. My expression. The shape of my jaw. The truth of my face.

I hated most of them. But I didn’t stop. Every day, I showed up. Every day, I looked. I named what I saw. I named what I wanted to see.

And slowly so quietly I almost missed it, something shifted.

One afternoon, I realized I hadn’t broken into a cold sweat. My heart wasn’t racing. I wasn’t bracing for the blow and my trigger finger wasn’t racing for the delete key. felt something unfamiliar: not panic but curiosity.

And then… recognition.
Not in a “look how pretty I am” kind of way.
In a “oh, there you are” kind of way.
In a “hi friend, I’ve missed you” kind of way.

That’s when the dam broke.
I still cry when I talk about it.
My hands still shake. (They are right now.)

Because that kind of disconnection?
That estrangement from your own face?
It lives deep in the body.
And it doesn’t leave quietly.

That 30-day dare? It became a method. A way of rewiring my brain and how I saw myself through repetition, ritual, and refusal to look away. That method became a movement. And that movement turned into a community of women who just submitted their own visual truth, straight to Vogue.

And now, like I promised, you’ve earned it.

The photos are right here.

(Or, you know, the PG versions. The rest? You’ll need to charge your crystals and manifest that PhotoVogue call-back like the rest of us), because you know I would never gatekeep this from you. xx Lisa