Episode 001: Why I Believe in Someplace for Every Body
November 23, 2021
If you’re new around here, I’m Carly Someplace, photographer behind Someplace Images and believer of creating Someplace for Every Body. As a curvy, unmarried woman in my 30s, I created this podcast to connect with others who want to share their story of finding their place in this world, but also tell my own stories.
I spent years pushing the envelope of creating a more inclusive space in the wedding industry—and now I empower others through community and boudoir photography. In this very first episode of Someplace for Every Body, I’m sharing about why I believe it’s important to create spaces for everybody with every body. Throughout the episodes and conversations of this podcast, I’ll be sharing a little about my life and why inclusivity, self-love, and encouragement is so important to me.
If you’re looking for a place for support, listen in, because this is Someplace for Every Body.
<iframe src="https://embed.acast.com/618022038d4f0300195c3ae8/618ecee7689f570013db4785" frameBorder="0" width="100%" height="190px"></iframe>Let’s Connect:
Review the Transcript:
Welcome to some place for everybody where we talk about belonging and being a human in our bodies and living in and learning to love our bodies. I’m your host, Carly someplace. This podcast is brought to you by someplace images, boudoir for everybody, you can see the full show notes at some place for everybody.com. Now, let’s change some self perspectives.
I’m Carly someplace and I want to welcome you to someplace for every body. So I’m sure you’re wondering yo, who is this? And yes, that’s a Hamilton reference. So I do want to introduce myself. First and foremost, I’m a curvy woman in the world, my pronouns are she her and recently I’ve reclaimed the word fat. And I use that to describe myself. I’m in my early 30s, unmarried, but in a fabulous relationship, and I have no children. I’m loud. I’m outspoken, a fast talker, always. And my mother will listen to this and give me the feedback of you should slow down. Don’t worry, Mom, I’m trying, I promise. I love you. So all of those things are great, and a very, very simple description of who I am. And throughout this podcast will dive deeper into my own story. But I find that like in real friendships, it’s really better if I can give you my stories bit by bit and not all at once. I’m not here to water them down or make them more bite sized at all. I want them to be true. And I want them to be honest. And I want you to be able to listen to the words that I’m saying. Without just taking them in as a description. There are a lot of who I am. I’m here to try and slow down and take it all in and connect us all through letting you know that you belong and your body belongs just the way that it is. I’m a photographer and I primarily work in boudoir photography, taking intimate and empowering photographs of everybody. all genders are welcome in front of my camera. Though I’ve primarily worked with women for the past few years, I was a wedding photographer for over a decade and before stepping into boudoir, full time and as a wedding photographer, I was constantly pushing my quote unquote agenda. In my work showing all body types in imagery. thin white heterosexual couples are not the only people getting married. But the wedding industry would have you believe such larger bodies are rarely featured in the top industry imagery along with darker skin tones, non gender conforming couples, same sex couples, you get the idea. So I pushed the envelope. And I got a lot of hate for it
too. I’ve had hate mail, I’ve had hateful messages. I’ve had a lot of things that people told me that I was too young to know what I was talking about that nobody would ever want to look at my work that my quote unquote idea that the wedding industry wasn’t inclusive was wrong, and how dare I imply that it wasn’t all different types of hate. And here I am. Alongside the title of photographer, I also claim the title of a community leader, I run an encouraging empowering community for women on Facebook called someplace boudoir and glamour. And with the start of this podcast, I have launched a gender inclusive group called someplace for everybody because self love body acceptance and body positivity are for everyone. So now I’m sure you’re thinking, okay, cool, Carly, that’s great. You’re these things and you like to take pictures of bodies. But why start a podcast. So every single day, every single day in work and what I do, somebody approaches me to have a discussion about their body. And I really honestly mean every single day either I receive a message, or it’s a conversation in my community. It’s somebody approaching me in the airport, it’s somebody coming up to me to tell me that they they like the way that I dress. They like the way all of this other stuff. They like the way that I do my hair, they love that I have these unique individual things about me and that I’m so confident and I’m discussing bodies and body image all the time. And every single day we are surrounded with images of bodies in the media that just only in the past year do I think are starting. And by starting I mean honestly doing the bare minimum to be inclusive and actually show bodies that look more similar to vast majorities of the population. And this is going to come up a lot and I don’t want people to think that I’m shaming straight sizes or that I’m wanting to say that if you’re you know, not a supermodel, that’s okay and that is what I’m saying and I do understand that some people naturally have bodies like that. However the majority of us do not it’s such a slim, slim slim amount of the population being featured on magazine covers are the ultimate perfection and that we should strive to be like them and that they are the perfect body and I’m here to tell you there is no perfect body. The perfect body is the one that you’re in because it is made for you and only you it is the one that gets you through the day. It is the one that lets you love people and cherish people. It does not matter what it looks like Like, You are a soul that exists inside of a body and that is what it is. And we’re here struggling with these bodies struggling with these bodies. media portrayed body standards have been incredibly harmful to like 99% of my friends. And the only reason I’m not saying 100% is because I try not to work and ultimatums and you know, absolutes. But 99% of my friends and my communities, it’s been harmful to self image.
I’ve yet to meet a single soul that at some point who has not thought that they are too fat, that they are too thin, too muscular to Angular, too short, too tall, not curvy in the right places, not slim in the right places, honestly, like down to our fingernails. I don’t like the way my nail beds are shaped. I don’t like the way that my hands are my hands are too small, my hands are too big, my hands are too rough. I have too many calluses. Why are these things that are just part of us being picked apart at every opportunity? And the answer. I don’t want to sound like this, but is that the beauty and the fashion industry have given us the fuel to be unhappy with any part that we so choose, and they profit from it. And there’s benefit from it. And like I said, in just the last year, I’ve seen so many changes. And I’ve seen companies that are growing, that are changing that narrative that are giving other things to us that are giving better clothes to us that are giving better just standards of be yourself and accept yourself as you are that I’m seeing different body types in advertising and in media. And it’s amazing. But it’s not enough, yet. It’s not enough. And the more that we talk about it, the more that we have these conversations, the more that we see that it’s not enough, and everybody then does a part to change. When they are advertising to us with something that’s no longer interesting to us, we can move forward. And that’s the hard part is that they’ve given us this narrative for so so so long, that we are not right, in less, we are thin, we are not right. Unless we are a specific skin tone. We are not right unless you know those joggers, sweat pants fall perfectly upon our bodies and make this look like this. And it’s so ridiculous in so many ways that they’ve given us this narrative that we have to look a certain way and to be happy, specifically within clothes, or that we have to look a certain way to be happy within makeup in the beauty industry. I think that clothes and makeup should be about self expression, that they should be an augmentation of who we are and who we are stylistically and who we’re comfortable being. They’re the things that we put on our body to make us stand out and be ourselves and just have these wonderful moments of self recognition. And when I’m being the person who’s wearing the things that I’m comfortable with, that I’ve got my makeup so that I feel like a rockstar, not because it’s fashion standards, not because it’s beauty standards, I’m not covering my zits, I’m not covering things like this, I feel like a rockstar when I have no makeup on at all. And that’s okay. And that’s for me, and somebody else might have a different experience. They might love it, they might have the artistry in it and its expression, and it’s bold, and it’s everything and it makes them happy. And those are the parts of the beauty in the fashion industry, that I want to focus on the ones that let us be ourselves and that let us have our own narratives. And that those small portions of those companies in those industries are supporting us in that are creating things that let us have that infinite self expression without the shame. And that’s the big thing is without the shame, because I’m here to tell you just a tiny little secret, there’s so much joy in moving away from the shaming standards that those industries have set up. There’s so much joy in it. And there’s so much courage in stepping away from negative thoughts from that media driven image that we are fed on a daily basis. But here’s the other part of that little secret is it’s really hard. It’s really hard to retrain your thoughts. When you’ve been given this over and over and over again. It’s really, really hard to not play comparison games, or to unlearn the consumption of media and the billion dollar industries that are profiting from our shame. But it’s a lot easier when you know that others are going through it too. That we’re all here that we’re all human, that we’re all struggling and that we’re all learning about ourselves. That’s why we’re here. We’re here to have discussions about the good, the bad and the ugly of these things. We’re here because I truly, truly without a doubt believe that our uniqueness makes us beautiful. But our commonalities are the things that bring us closer to one another bring us empathy and camaraderie. And I believe that we’re all on an individual journey. was learning to love care for and become our best selves. And that’s not going to change. Everybody that I’m going to talk to everybody that you’re going to hear from everybody, including myself. We’re all going to change. We’re all on individual journeys. We’re all going to have things that resonate with us. And we’re here because I truly believe that there is someplace for everybody.
Thanks so much for listening to someplace for everybody. If you love this episode, would you mind leaving me a review in your favorite podcast app and subscribe to the show? If you’re looking for a community to love on you and support you and your self love Journey, come join our all gender Facebook group someplace for everybody which can be found in the show notes at someplace for everybody.com Until we meet again, be kind to yourself.
