Meet Michelle Lanning | PORTRAIT/ENGAGEMENT/ WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHER

We had the good fortune of connecting with Michelle Lanning and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Michelle, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
Starting my own business has been a long time in the making. I have always done photography as a side hustle, but didn’t have the confidence to make the leap into the freelance world until the pandemic came and all I did was sit around and think about doing so. I decided to branch away from the 9-5 world in 2021 as a way to regain some sanity after years of childcare & overtime & little time off. During all those stay at home months during the Pandemic, I decided that I wanted to pursue what truly makes me happy full-time. Life is short. It was a simple decision to make, but scary to actually implement! I had to completely reconfigure my life and just go for it. Its been a process of self understanding, self growth & I am so excited to be here following my dreams!

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I love portrait photography, I love nature & I love natural light all with a passion. I love connecting with people through my favorite 35mm lens. Sometimes there is just a magic during a session where someone lets you in to see who they really are- no fronts, no walls, no personas- and you are right there, able to just capture whatever it is that makes them, them.

When outside in nature, I love the dance of incorporating elements of my subjects’ surroundings and making the person or people on the other end of the camera feel confident and comfortable with themselves. Its not always easy to do, but I always just try to remain open minded, positive and create space for the person or people I’m photographing to be creative.

I first got really focused on the concept of photography around 2010. My ex at the time had photography publishing blog, which was very popular and many, many talented photographers would submit their work to his blog to be published. This was before I ever had an instagram so I was infatuated with the amount of stunning images flowing into his email. At that time, I was in my early to mid 20’s, pretty big into feminism and learning how the world works. I would notice that a lot of the images that came into his possession to be published were really sexual in nature and always of a certain ‘tone’. I spent months and months trying to wrap my brain around how some of these women were portrayed or characterized. Now, there is nothing wrong with the representation of sexual fantasies in photographs, and I am completely aware that some people feel beautiful and empowered when they are sexualized, but to my young mind, I wanted to see something different. I wanted to see nudity represented differently. And whether I knew it back then or not, my mission had started. Nudity tends to be regarded off as sexual, but it is inherently not. My younger feminist years, where I spent many years angry and confused at female representation in society, led me to my current beliefs about nudity- and I’m so thankful for that! I want to make people feel beautiful, not sexualized. I love when people feel at home in their skin, at home in their surroundings and just being a human on earth. It’s as simple as that.

Now I don’t only photography nudity. I mostly shoot engagements, weddings, families & moody musician portraits. But my philosophy on how to capture people started in 2010. My brand is to capture your happiest moments in your natural state, come as you are, because that is beautiful.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
If my friend was coming for a visit to Los Angeles for a day, I would for sure take them to all my favorite spots! We could start the day but taking a long walk through the hills up Beachwood Canyon, to find all the secret vista points that hide until discovered. Hit up the Oaks Coffee down the street and then head out of town to my favorite spot in Malibu to hike and explore the beaches at Point Dume. Its a beautiful spot to enjoy the sunshine and views. Epic place to watch the sunset as well. A lot of places have changed ownership or gone out of business after the Pandemic took everyone by surprise in 2020. But my favorite place to eat is Sage Cafe & Bistro in Echo Park and I love to grab a drink at Bar Bandini also in Echo park. If we had more time, I would absolutely plan for a camping trip to Catalina. I absolutely love taking the ferry to the far end of the island and hiking across the island to my favorite camp ground. You can swim there, keep your eyes open for buffalo & enjoy bonfires all whilst feeling like you’re on the edge of the world in the Pacific Ocean.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
The first person who comes to mind is one of my good friends who lives in Germany, Kristina Duncan. We met when we were 20 years old, when I moved to Germany for a year during college. She has always supported my efforts as a photographer and was always pushing me to publish photos online and pursue photography more seriously. I sort of always just took photos as a hobby at first. But then fast forward to 2018, when she was getting married in Greece that summer and insisted that I photograph her wedding. No was not an option, and so I hopped on a plane & photographed her wedding on the Greek island of Tinos. This was definitely the beginning of my photography journey and I can’t thank her enough for believing in me and pushing me to do bigger things than I ever felt I could.

Website: https://www.michellelanningphoto.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/michellelanning_photo/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/michelle.lanning.121/

Image Credits
Michelle Lanning Photography