Amanda has been a very close friend of mine for 7-8 years. We’re both photographers so it is really helpful to bounce ideas off of each other. She has been very supportive of this project from the beginning and has come to every session so far to take ‘behind the scenes’ photos for me and to help me around the set. I couldn’t do this project without support from good friends and family.

Here is a bit from Amanda E:

“My name is Amanda Dian. I am a maternity and newborn photographer. I’ve worked for various corporate studios across North Texas and Southern Oklahoma. With the support of my husband, I started my own business in April 2006 and shortly after I met Amanda in her early years in fashion. We’ve been friends and supporters of each others work ever since.

We’ve also traded many photo sessions for one another, including my bridal portraits and a family session with a former foster son. The most meaningful session to date was a practice session for her new style of beauty photography.

After a bought of depression caused by the loss of my mother, I gained back all the weight I’d worked so hard to lose. The last thing I wanted was to be on the other side of the camera. But as usual, we had a lot of fun and laughs.

I was anxious about to see the finished images and I wasn’t dissapointed! I was blown away and tearing up at the inages in front of me. I didn’t see the weight gain. I saw the wrinkled nose that my husband loves when I laugh. I saw pieces of my mom looking back at me, showing me that she’s still with me, and always will be.”

If you are in need of a great newborn or maternity photographer in the DFW area, check out her website at: www.amandadian.com

Susan was a friend of a friend and was very excited to take part in this project. She was my second surviving beautifully model. She is a survivor of colon cancer. She was hilarious and was an absolute pleasure to photograph. She has been a photographer, and let me tell you, a photographer doing a photo session for another photographer can be really stressful, but she was amazing!

When she had me tie up her dress, I noticed that she had a large, beautiful tattoo on her back, and of course I had to ask if I could get a photo of it. The result of that last set is just awesome.

Women are deeply attached to our hair. When chemo takes that away, it can be a real challenge. After I sent Susan her photos, she told me that she felt so good after her shoot that it inspired her to go buy new makeup, and to go outside without a wig. I cried happy tears when she told me that. THAT is exactly what I want to happen during/after these shoots.

I got the chance to meet her mom and get to know them a little bit better and it brought me so much joy to watch them decide who got to keep which print!

Here’s a bit from Susan about her session:

“I was diagnosed with colon cancer in Nov. of 2014.  It was sudden and honestly completely out of left field.  I didnt really have time to process it. One day I was headed to the ER with abdominal cramps and an inability to keep food down and two days later I’m in surgery. They removed a softball sized tumor from my descending colon and told me that had I’d waited much longer it would’ve burst possibly killing me. I’m lucky, I guess. I had a great group of doctors taking care of me. Chemotherapy was hard. I won’t lie about that and even now that it’s over I still suffer some of the side effects.  I know I’ll get through it though. I have had and still have awesome support from family and friends.  

I wanted to take a minute out to thank my mom, Mary Farmer, for everything she’s done to help me get this project going. She has been an active part of me planning this project from helping me gather wardrobe and furniture to setting up the structure of the non-profit side of the project. She also comes to nearly every shoot to record video for me.

She herself has dealt with a multitude of sickness over the years, including thyroid cancer. Through everything, she has never hesitated to put helping other people above her own needs.

She has many years of experience with non-profit work and her wealth of experience is so helpful. I really couldn’t do this without her.

“Mary Farmer is a survivor of domestic violence and sexual assault. She understands the struggles of

Survivors. Her own story of triumph has been an inspiration to millions as her story has been featured in

Good Housekeeping & Marie Claire Magazines.

Her journey has brought her to founding a non-profit crisis center for victims in 2006 where she worked

as the Executive Director, victim advocate and public speaker. The organization has assisted over 3000

victims of family violence and sexual assault since its formation. In 2014, she embarked on the next

“assignment” in her journey: establishing Farmer Family Ministries which provides individual life

coaching to women as well as non-profit and ministry coaching services.

Her positive, uplifting messages have been inspiring victims to heal for years and now she is taking the

message public: Nearly everyone has experience hurts in life or other feelings that are not exclusive to

victims! ‘We are ALL survivors of life!’

Mary has spoken at conferences, retreats, workshops, key note events and well as performed at

festivals, churches, events and served as praise and worship leader in multiple start up churches.

She is a three time recording artist and the author of the book “Hope Reigns” which is scheduled for

release in October 2015.”

If you want to check out her work, please stop by www.farmerfamilyministries.org

I was blessed to work with Nicole Jasien on my first Surviving Beautifully photoshoot. Nicole was a Facebook friend of my mom’s and when we talked about my project, Nicole was her first suggestion to be my first model. I’m so glad we got in touch. It’s been an interesting road trying to figure out how to get this project together, and I really appreciate Nicole’s patience through the process. We got some amazing photos through the day and I couldn’t be happier with the outcome.

I finished setting up my temporary studio just a few days before Nicole’s shoot. She was also in the midst of moving with her three young kids from Texas to California. It was a whirlwind day but she was such a sweetheart and her kids were hilarious. I had a great time on her session and I hope she did too.

Nicole has stage 4 breast cancer and is supporting her 3 children on her own. As I said, she recently moved to California. She did this to seek treatment alternatives that are not available in Texas. If you’d like to keep up with her adventures in California check out her Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/nicole.jasien

You can support her by buying some Younique makeup, which is what she used for her photoshoot.

www.3dlashesbynicole.com

We recorded some video during our session which we used for our first promo video for Surviving Beautifully that you can see below. It’s also currently on the home page of our site.