All images courtesy of Michelle Siu
Hi fam,
Michelle's first message to me ended almost like a footnote.
Ten years as a photojournalist. She "made it." Published with NYT, joined Women Photograph, traveled the world covering stories. The kind of career you build slowly and sacrifice for, quietly, across years. She then moved across an ocean for love, a baby in the middle of the pandemic, a career that had gone quiet.
She'd also fallen out of love with the camera. With the industry. And man, have I been there myself. That feeling where your voice as a storyteller gets blurred because you're serving someone else. Another story, another client ad nauseam. I remember asking myself:
Does this really matter?
Who am I serving?
Is this worth it?
I've asked myself those questions more times than I can count, and I saw it in Michelle immediately. She even mentioned she was thinking of selling her camera kit and finding something else.
I remember that moment. Falling out of love with the camera, the industry as a whole. It's a specific kind of grief.
I've received versions of that message many times. Immigrant women. Mothers. Mid-career photographers who gave everything to this medium and one day looked up and didn't recognize themselves in it anymore. The geography changes. The career stage changes. The life changes. The state of the media. The state of the world. The feeling underneath stays the same. Who am I doing this for?
We spent six sessions in her archive. A decade of images she hadn't really looked at since leaving photojournalism. We asked what they kept circling. What came back. We also looked at her underlying limiting beliefs: why was she afraid of putting her own story out there. What was she risking?
The result: Love in Three Acts. A photobook and 20-minute film made at her kitchen table. Scanned photographs, handwritten notes, pages assembled by hand. Memory, identity, womanhood, mental health. Unpolished and intimate on purpose. Film first, then the book: a deeper, tactile unfolding of the same story.
It sold out. There’s a second printing coming, you can order yours here.
She even hosted an exhibition in London.
She said: "I began sessions with Lola after I quit photography professionally and she breathed new life into my approach and feelings about a medium I loved but had to leave."
That's the work. Falling in love with your craft is possible. Getting dreams clients is possible. Publishing your book is doable!
If you have images sitting in folders for years, a project you can't finish, or you've lost the thread entirely, that's exactly where I work best.
Easter Sale open until April 10. Three ways in:
1:1 mentorship — we go deep into your archive and your vision, together. Foundation session — one focused call to find the clarity you've been circling. Cohort — community, structure, 12 weeks from chaos to a body of work.
Pick what fits your stage. Everything is at https://www.laurabeltranvillamizar.me/.
Sales close this April 10!
With love, Lola ♥