Transcript

Cinthia Jaimes  00:08  On the spectrum of all the different ways your body can look, realize that it’s not us individually. It’s either the patriarchy, the media, whatever it is,  the powers that be, and you give yourself the grace to just exist. There’s like, our bodies don’t bring value to our lives, we bring value to our bodies. I’ve learned that we are all very hard on ourselves and we need to give ourselves more grace because we’re going to waste our lives trying to fix something that isn’t broken to begin with.

Mónika  00:41  Welcome to Our Latina Lens podcast where we elevate the work and stories of accomplished Latina and let the male photographers in the US. I’m your host Mónika, and this podcast is part of our wider Our Latina Lens community.

Mónika  00:55  I am thrilled to share this interview with portrait and boudoir photographer Cinthia Jaimes, also known as Cin. She’s the owner of Cin Photo Studio in the Oakcliff neighborhood of Dallas, Texas. Not only does Cinthia create gorgeous images, she’s on a mission to use her own life lessons to build up others through her skills as a photographer. When you follow Cin on social media, you quickly receive that she has a huge heart for her community, and is all about supporting and elevating those around her.

Mónika  01:29  A content warning for our listeners, gun violence and thoughts of suicide are discussed in this episode. You can find exact timestamps in the show notes where we discuss these issues. Those are available in your podcast player. As Cynthia and I discuss protecting your mental health is extremely important. Please take care of yourself. If you’re struggling with thoughts of suicide, please contact the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988.

Mónika  02:00  All the artists and entrepreneurs that Cinthia references including where to find her work are linked in the show notes and on our website at ourlatinalens.com/podcast where you can also sign up for our newsletter.

Mónika  02:15  Today we’re talking to Cin of Cin photos. One of the things that really attracted me to her work was the high quality of her work the beauty of her images. If you have not seen her Dia de los Muertos campaign for Cadena Collective in 2021. It was spectacular. Cin has been an incredible supporter of Our Latina Lens and she is your ultimate hype woman. So if you are looking for someone to create images of you that make you feel good about yourself, this is your person is your photographer. Bienvenida Cin!

Cinthia Jaimes  02:56  No me chifles. Thank you so much for having me. I’ve, you know, I’ve been looking forward to us having this conversation. And just getting to kind of have our deep dive together for so long. So I’m so excited to finally be here.

Mónika  03:12  Yay. Me too. So I read that you studied photojournalism. Take us to your shift from photojournalism to portraiture and boudoir. Was there an experience that caused that shift? Or was it part of a larger exploration of genres?

Cinthia Jaimes  03:28  Thank you. I first picked up photojournalism back in 2015. I have always known that I really wanted to be a voice for my community, especially growing up in a predominantly Brown and Black neighborhood. The only media that my community would receive was often related to crime, related to poverty, related to violence. So I wanted to share people’s stories, whatever they may be, and hold space for them. I would like to invite myself to protests and rallies and photograph folks there. So I did that for almost a year and a half. And then I began to shift after the Black Lives Matter protest that Dallas had in July of 2016. That Black Lives Matter of protest in Dallas in 2016 began like I’m assuming many others had before it. There was a lot of pain in the air because of recent events that led up to the protest. And there was also a really great sense of community. We were all there hurting together. But we were all there fighting together.

Cinthia Jaimes  04:38  And then eventually we were heading out of the protests. When we heard gunfire. I remember this moment so vividly of just coldness running through my body as the fire, as the shooting kept going and going and going. And then the increasing sound of sirens because every police officer, every firetruck every ambulance within the center of downtown, everyone was making their way to the scene at the same time. It was inescapable. You couldn’t hear the person in front of you. For the half hour that my husband and I spent trying to get out of downtown, we had no idea what was going on. We saw officers kneeling next to us. So we knew we were close. Finally, we were able to find a little alleyway where we were able to finally leave downtown and go back home. That was one of the last protests I photographed for a long time. I remember putting my camera down after that protest and not picking it back up for almost six months. Just because I had this realization of this is often what photojournalism is it is chasing bad news. It is chasing pain. And obviously these stories deserve to be shared. And we need to bring awareness to some of these situations. But after that protest, I had to like accept that I was a very sensitive person, I am a highly sensitive person. Although I am firm believer that those sources have to be shared, I no longer believed that I was the person to share them.

Cinthia Jaimes  06:29  Like I said, I didn’t pick up my camera for six months after that. And so it wasn’t till 2017 Where I finally felt comfortable again, picking up my camera. And it was to do portraits because I had a ton of friends that knew that I was a photographer that I had a camera and so slowly, folks started to ask me to take portraits for them. That is where I just started to dip my toe into all different types of genres of portraiture, I did families, I did events, I did weddings, I mean everything you could think of I did for almost two years until I really began to find my footing in boudoir.

Cinthia Jaimes  07:04  During this time, I was beginning to address my mental health issues and address my body image issues that I had with myself. So there was a lot of internal healing going on for myself, where I was finally giving myself the space to feel my feelings, process them and heal them one at a time. As I was beginning to make this transition professionally, I was also kind of transitioning out of a place of like self loathing, and out of a place where I felt like every part of me needed to be fixed. Unbeknownst to me, that healing work that I was beginning to do started to pour into my photography. And it began to show up in how I photographed other people and specifically how I photograph other women and female identifying people, how I could hold space for them, to explore a side of them that we often get shamed for exploring for ourselves that we’re not reserving for the consumption of men without the male gaze and without any shame or guilt, or judgment, whether summer 2019, I was finally full in boudoir and portraits. And now in 2020, I was lucky enough to be able to quit my corporate job originally in hopes of just focusing on my mental health because the pandemic had definitely taken a toll on me. But eventually it was like one of those things that when you remove the barrier that you’ve like, held on to the universe finally starts pouring into all the things you asked for. So as soon as I quit my corporate job, within a two month period, I was completely booked for photography and had even found my dream studio in my own neighborhood. It was just like a snowball effect. It just didn’t stop. And it hasn’t stopped. It’s almost two years now. It hasn’t stopped. But I definitely no longer feel like it’s out of my control. I definitely feel like I’m finally steering the snowball down the hill.

Mónika  08:57  And it’s been such a joy and pleasure watching even in the short time that I’ve been following you your growth in that time. Can you describe a time where you were maybe in a session or do you just felt that click like this is my genre? I am in my flow. This is what I meant to do.

Cinthia Jaimes  09:15  Yeah, I definitely have. I feel it a little bit in every boudoir session that I do. And I feel it most when I can tell that a client has felt the reward for stepping outside of their comfort zone. I feel I feel like most this is what I’m meant to do. When I see other women feel happy for having had the courage to show up for themselves.

Mónika  09:43  Can you talk a little bit about what the genre of boudoir is? I’ve seen a lot of misunderstandings online I’ve seen even in photography groups, there have been conversations that have blown up about boudoir. What how do you use see boudoir what is it that attracts you to that genre?

Cinthia Jaimes  10:01  Boudoir for me is the genre of photography, where folks can be vulnerable about all of their physical body in their relationship between their physical body and how they view themselves internally. It is sensual. And I like to say that there’s a difference between sensual and sexual. For me sensual is suggestive, it has a lot to do with your emotions. And definitely how you want to portray yourself versus sexual often has been seen as what you can do for others. For me, I like to focus, boudoir shoots on women reclaiming their bodies and their relationship with their bodies. As a Latina, I grew up in a very conservative home where we never spoke about sex, we never had to talk, we had a piece the clues together ourselves. I was taught from a very young age that my body and sex had to be reserved for the consumption of my future husband. And sometimes you grew up really believing that and really thinking I trust the people that said this to me so it’s got to be true. And then I hit my early 20s and it just started feeling off. I got to, like, step outside of my bubble outside of the people that believe the exact same thing. And I began to question what it really meant to, to own my own body to what consent meant for me, and what I believed was worth waiting for, or who got to choose what to do with my body. So for me, boudoir is just you reclaiming your body as your own. A lot of women that I photograph in boudoir sessions struggle with body image issues. So it’s an opportunity for them to see their body with more grace outside of their control. I don’t know if you know this, but a lot of folks that struggle with body image issues when they look in the mirror, they subconsciously contoured the way that they post stand or pose so that they can adjust the way they look in the reflection, which is why there’s this disconnect between how people see themselves especially in reflections and how they are photographed by others. Because when you are photographed by someone else, you can’t control necessarily the camera angle. And you don’t know You know, you don’t have like a live footage of what exactly you look like. Which is why often folks feel really disappointed when they’re photographed by a friend on their phone. Because it’s not how they would like adjust and tweak their body image. But for boudoir shoot is an opportunity to release all the expectations that are placed on you in your body and just get a chance to claim it for yourself.

Mónika  12:45  That sounds really powerful. And I can imagine that’s a powerful experience for your clients that you have all this knowledge and now you’ve brought your own healing to the space to help others reclaim that. You mentioned you grew up in a Latina household. Latina is a word that means many things to many people. How do you identify culturally, and please share any other identities that you hold that might also influence your photography journey.

Cinthia Jaimes  13:14  I definitely identify Latino or Latinx, I am a Mexicana. I was born in Mexico in just outside of Guadalajara. I feel like I gravitated more towards Latina right now. Because it feels a little sticky when I say that I’m Mexicana sometimes, at least from my experience speaking to other Mexicans in the U.S. So I was born in Jalisco, Mexico, but I migrated to the US when I was a child. And I was raised here. So I definitely felt the struggle of not being Mexican enough for my Mexican family. Because I grew up with the American culture. And I’ve been American enough for the rest of the country, I grew up with my first language being Spanish and even then my Spanish kind of sucks, it’s always gonna be a little rough. So I definitely feel judged when I speak Spanish. And then I have a little bit of an accent or a stutter when I speak English because I do think of the words in Spanish first. So I prefer Latina because it feels like it’s just a good mix of a Mexican immigrant who was raised in the States, but at heart I am a Mexicana.

Mónika  14:22  Thank you for sharing that, definitely relate. How have your identities? How has your journey affected your creative process or your creative journey? How does it influence you or how does it show up in your work?

Cinthia Jaimes  14:34  So the way that my identity has influenced my journey is that it made it hard to start photography. I think that I would have definitely picked up photography a lot sooner if my Mexican family and my Latino family gave me the opportunity to explore a creative field instead of the discouraging and bit out of their fear that I would not be able to have a successful career in a creative field. I went to high school and got a full ride to college to do biology, pre med. And I went off to do to Texas A&M here and did my freshman year and hated it. I realized really early on that I was either not cut out for it, or that I was just not as interested in that field as I had expected to be. And that was really hard on my teenage self, because I did not have a plan B, I was that perfect Mexican daughter, straight A’s never caused any issues, had a good head on her shoulders was very academic. And I went off to college, to become a doctor. And I remember the disappointment my family felt when I dropped out after one year and didn’t have any backup plan. It took me a couple of years after that, to just gain my footing again, and give myself the opportunity to drop the shame of academics not being the way I wanted them to go. To give myself the opportunity to explore something else. And it’s at this time, it’s really really funny. I don’t know if it’s like haha, funny. Or like funny, weird. But after I dropped out of college, I spent two or three years not knowing what to do just weren’t working regular jobs trying to find a new path. Because again, I had no plan B, I was very self assured that I was just going to do the one thing I wanted to do. During this time, my biological father came back into my life, for the first time in all my years. My biological father is a photojournalist in Mexico. So naturally, you can imagine a teenage girl being told this and it being used to discourage her from a creative career that I didn’t want to be anything like the man that had abandoned me. So I forced myself to do anything but a creative career. But he came back into my life as I was being encouraged by other friends that I worked with to pursue journalism, since I was very community oriented. And he’s the one that suggested that I pick up a camera so that I would be more likely to get gigs because I could do both the photography and the writing. This was the summer of 2015 ish. And he made it out to look like he was about to buy me my first birthday gift leading up to my birthday. And then he ghosted me on my birthday. So out of spite, I went and bought my camera myself. And that’s how I finally like gave myself the opportunity to explore creative career.

Mónika  17:44  Sometimes we get there by encouragement, and sometimes we get there, as I’m going to show you.

Cinthia Jaimes  17:49  Yeah. For sure.

Mónika  17:52  It sounds like when you started your creative career, that your family was not so sure about you having a creative career, or even exploring creative avenues. Where are they now? What kind of support or what kind of reaction do you get from them now?

Cinthia Jaimes  18:09  My family was definitely very hesitant when I first picked up a camera. And when I began shooting, first out of fear for my safety as I was photographing protests and rallies in Dallas. And then when I did shift to portraiture, they saw it mostly as a hobby. I think that sometimes our community needs to see someone do it to believe that it can be done, especially when you’re first gen or when you’re the first person within your community to do something, or to be interested in doing something. If there hasn’t been someone that looks like you that come from the same path as you have, it’s really hard to imagine how accessible that career that field that goal could be to to you. So for the first few years of my portrait journey, my family just thought of it as a hobby. And as I began to pick up boudoir, there definitely was a little judgment, because I had to explain the difference between boudoir and pornography, the different intentions, the different boundaries, and that it was okay for women to explore this side of themselves and enjoy this side of themselves, even if it was just for themselves, and it was never going to be shared with anybody else. Thankfully though, after a year or two, they finally began to come around, which is why I was very shocked at my mom’s encouragement to pursue photography full time. And when that time came for me when it was like my time to cross that bridge. And since becoming a full time photographer and opening my own studio, it’s no longer a question of could you be successful doing something like this or doing anything adventurous or entrepreneurial and more of how are you going to get it done? So I’m very grateful that my journey has been for have a great support system. I know that that’s definitely not something everyone has the privilege of having, but that it has also helped my family heal a part of them that couldn’t imagine themselves doing something creative or doing something that they hadn’t seen others do before.

Mónika  20:20  What has it been like as a Latina to have your own studio, can you talk a little bit about that piece of what it means to be a photographer and a businesswoman?

Cinthia Jaimes  20:32  Sometimes I feel like being a Latina with my own studio is no big deal. It is just me in a little space, taking photos. And as I go online to to network or find education, I’ve really began to realize how the majority of examples of photographers with studios are not people of color. And that’s when it really sinks in of what possibly seeing a Latina with a studio does for the rest of the photography community. It’s been very hard to be a full time photographer, it’s been very hard to run a studio because I’ve never done it before. I’ve never had the opportunity to mentor or shadow another photographer that had especially not another Latina photographer, to be the first to learn all of these things along the way of what I’m trying to juggle all of this has really put almost like blinders on me, I’m just focused on what’s ahead, I hadn’t had the opportunity to realize the impact that my example has on my community. I’m very grateful, I’m very grateful that people can, can learn from me can see themselves in me that they can that having a studio and being a full time photographer, and following your dreams is not just a dream. It’s a plan. And once you see someone that looks like you or someone that has the same journey, as you do it, it feels more accessible. It feels more in reach, even if it’s just by example,

Mónika  22:04  We put out a list in one of our newsletters, and I found five five Latina-owned studios, I think there’s more if there’s more, please contact us. But I found five. And if you’re in Texas support Cins studio. And you talked about not having very many Latino, Latina, people of color who are doing photography education. So like many people I’ve been interviewing when something’s not there, people are saying, well, I’m gonna create it. So what are what are you working on in that area?

Cinthia Jaimes  22:34  Yeah, I’m glad you asked. I am working on launching a photography education YouTube channel. It’s something that I that’s been in my heart to do for years now. And I’ve mentioned it to my audience for years. Now, you know, I didn’t even notice it back then. When I taught myself photography on YouTube, for like the majority of my career as a whole, I learned photography on YouTube. And it wasn’t until recent years where I was finally making a little extra change that I could invest in photography education. And what I’ve noticed now is that the predominantly, almost all photography education is by White instructors, or White content creators, which is totally fine. They’re amazing. I learned from them like they know what they’re doing. But there’s something special about being able to learn from someone that you can relate to on another level. And I think it’s very important to remember that we need different perspectives, in photography, and in every single field. And my perspective, as an immigrant, as a woman, as a Mexican immigrant who was raised in the States, as a Latina, it impacts the way I work, it impacts my relationship with people and me showing up in media sharing what I already do, it can help people it can help other photographers grow and see themselves in my same shoes. I remember when I first started learning photography on YouTube, the majority of photography videos on YouTube were made by men, you know, obviously white men, but majority men, and at the time, there was maybe five female photographers that I knew of, and four of the five for white women. So there’s plenty of space for us. And that’s, that’s actually something that I hear often I always hear when it comes to the photography industry of how oversaturated it is like there’s no point in picking up a camera or doing YouTube or creating content online because it’s already oversaturated but oversaturated with who? Because there’s definitely place for photographers of color, because there historically has not been so if you are a Latina or photographer of color, and you’re scared of showing up because you’ve been told time and time again that there’s already plenty of photographers, please do not listen to those people. There’s plenty of clients, there’s plenty of work to be done. And the field needs you.

Mónika  24:56  Yes, that field needs you. That is so beautiful. And I absolutely agree

Mónika  25:02  [music] A remind her to listen to our next episode when Cynthia takes us behind the scenes and into her thought process as she created three of her most significant images. Don’t miss her image tour episode. [music]

Mónika  25:34  Can you tell us a little bit how your journey your creative journey has affected your life perspective what you’ve seen through your lens, the women that you photograph that people you photograph? How has that experience changed your life perspective?

Cinthia Jaimes  25:49  That was a beautiful question. I have been photographing women for five years in boudoir. And what I’ve learned from my clients is that we are so hard on ourselves, it doesn’t matter if you’re thin and White, or if you’re plus size and Brown, everyone that I have photographs 99% of the time struggles with self image issues. At first, it was hard for me as a fat woman to hold space for thin women that were felt insecure about their bodies, until I realized that the same system that has shamed me and made me feel lesser than because I my body is still the same system oppressing them, their feelings are valid on the spectrum of all the different ways your body can look, realize that it’s not us individually. It’s either the patriarchy, the media, whatever it is, the powers that be and you give yourself the grace to just exist. There isn’t like our bodies don’t bring value to our lives, we bring value to our bodies, I’ve learned that we are all very hard on ourselves. And we need to give ourselves more grace, because we’re going to waste our lives trying to fix something that isn’t broken to begin with. I can put an album out that I have that has photos, a couple photos from my teenage years that managed to survive this long and a lot of photos from recent years. But there’s almost nothing from my early 20s. Because I felt too self conscious about having gained weight to ever step in front of the camera, whether it was with friends or professionally. Now that I’ve had the opportunity to do some healing when it comes to my body image issues. And to really learn to love myself as I am. It makes me so sad to know that early 20s Cinthia is not documented in photos, I think we always look back at ourselves with Kinder eyes. And it makes me sad to know that I was unkind to my early adult self. And I think a lot of us can relate to that in some degree, there’s definitely whether it’s postpartum or weight gain or weight loss, whether it were just not where we thought we would be in life, so we feel really unworthy. And we don’t feel like it deserves to be documented. A lot of us are missing chunks of our lives from photos that we can look back to because we work so hard on ourselves. So whatever it is, you’re going through whatever it is that you feel about yourself right now, please remember that future you is going to look back at this time and look at you with so much kindness in their eyes. So please give her something to look back to.

Mónika  28:29  Thank you for sharing that that was really beautiful. And I’m so happy for you to have had that journey, such a special one and one that you share with others. I wish you were close, I want I want this kind of hyping up. So I could go into your studio and be highly hyped up like that, because I definitely have areas in my life where it’s similar feelings. Can you tell me a little bit about how do you approach your image making? Your images are really creative, they are gorgeous. They are varied. And I definitely see over time that you’re pushing yourself. You are not complacent. You are not you know, a photographer who just keeps doing the same thing. What is your creative process to come up with your images?

Mónika  29:13  Or high key, high key fatphobic.

Cinthia Jaimes  29:13  As a portrait photographer, it’s my job to capture the very best in people because these shoots are something that don’t happen often in people’s lives. I like to be extra. So I always like to tell folks, when we’re shooting to imagine themselves as a telenovela villain, because telenovela villains know exactly who they are. There’s no doubt in their mind. There’s very little insecurity there. And we all have a little thing available and in us, you know, when I’m creating these portraits for women, I want them to see themselves in a way they may have never seen themselves before. I want them to realize that this very same body that they felt insecure about. That they hated maybe. That they were unkind to, is the very same body that’s going to create these beautiful portraits and hopefully help change the perspective. It’s really easy to look at someone’s portfolio and think that everyone is a supermodel there. But at least for my portfolio, the majority of my clients are real women. What I hope to do with everyone is to take them out of their comfort zone and guide them every step of the way so that they learn to be comfortable outside of that comfort zone. And they learn to expand those boundaries in a way that they consent to, that makes them feel empowered then makes them feel like they’re regaining territory in their lives. I personally believe that there shouldn’t be a difference when you photograph or pose people, depending on body type. I believe that is low key fatphobic

Cinthia Jaimes  29:59  Because there shouldn’t be I think that oftentimes, oftentimes what people mean when they say that these poses are flattering for curvier women is that the poses slim the woman down, which is fat phobic, because why are we trying to slim women down? Why are we trying to make women smaller? When I’m creating portraits, I want to challenge clients to step outside of their comfort zone to discover new boundaries, and to see the body that they have a hard time with sometimes or that they have been unkind to in a different light. Because my goal outside of taking beautiful portraits is that hopefully everyone walks away seeing themselves in a new light and in with kinder eyes, because they’re gonna carry that confidence and that empowerment and that energy with them. And hopefully, they’re going to pour it into others as well. So it’ll create this ripple effect of women pouring into women and given everyone the grace to be kinder to themselves.

Mónika  32:06  You have some T-shirts that you have put out that say Sin Miedo [without fear], can you talk about why you chose that as your merchandise for your studio?

Cinthia Jaimes  32:16  Yes, in 2020, when the pandemic hit, there was a lot of concern in the in everyone’s lives definitely in mind. As I transitioned from working from home, I really began to struggle with my mental health. I had to put my photography, my personal photography business on hold while I worked my corporate job, and was just so much anxiety about where the world was going. And everything that was happening in my personal life, I really quickly began to spiral, I got to a place where I was so low, I was beginning to have suicidal ideation, where I wasn’t necessarily in a place where I was going to endanger myself. But the boundary that keeps you from even considering it was dwindling. And so as the pressures mounted as my depression got worse, it was really easy for my mind to say, you wouldn’t have to struggle with this if you weren’t here, and can be clever like that, even though it wasn’t that clever. And I remember the exact feeling of knowing that that was a problem. And not being able to connect my mentor to my physical to ask for help. I remember struggling right next to friends and feeling this immense sadness, and wishing they will just know. So that they could ask because if they asked it for some reason, I would feel less of a burden to them. So I struggled and spiraled for months until I began to crack. And I remember one day during the work day, I was having a little breakdown during my lunch period. As I was picking myself back up and getting ready to go back to work. My mom called me and my mom has is that stereotypical Mexican mom, that will tell you to just keep on pushing to put the emotions aside and be grateful that you’re working because it is a privilege to be able to work especially during this period of the pandemic so many people were being laid off because of the uncertainty. So I definitely felt the pressure to hold on to that corporate job as long as I could. And I really loved my corporate team. They were amazing women, they definitely helped mold me into the business owner that I am today. But I couldn’t shake the sadness. So one day when my mom calls me, I finally broke in I spilled my heart out to her and I told her everything I was feeling and everything that was going on and I cried to her like a baby and I was afraid of her invalidating my feelings, as a lot of maybe Mexican or immigrant parents do. And I was so so gratefully surprised when she validated my feelings and she held space for me. And that’s when she said, we had a la vida la tenemos que vivir sin miedo, nada merece tu paz asi. And so with that, I physically felt the weight that I was caring fall from my shoulders. My mom told me that we can live our life in fear. And I was living in fear, I was living in fear of losing my corporate job, I was living in fear of getting COVID, I was living in fear of taking the leap of faith that I knew I desperately wanted to take, but no one had taken it before me. I had no idea how or how if I fell, I had no idea how to pick myself back up, or so I thought, just because the fear of taking the leap to begin with, is overwhelming. But I just felt so validated when my mom spoke those words to me that I got the courage to quit my corporate job like that week. And it was so scary to quit the corporate job without a plan B in the beginning of a pandemic. But it was one of those things that really helped put so much life into perspective, as scary as some risks are to take. They’re absolutely worth taking. And they’re so worth taking, that they’re worth any possible failure. I think as, I don’t know if it’s a perfectionist than me, the oldest daughter in me that failure was so scary at the time, but failures part of the process. If I had quit, and my photography business hadn’t picked back up, I would have just found another job. And then I could have, you know, come back to that dream later, with more experience and a different perspective and different strategy. My mom really spoke that courage into me, and it helped me not only take that first big leap of faith, but the 1000s that have taken since because I think that that’s something we don’t talk about a lot when we are talking about being courageous in our lives and in our business. It’s never just one leap of faith. It there’s the scary one, that’s the first one. And then there are 1000s, after and what you learn is that the fear or the risk doesn’t get smaller, you just get better.

Mónika  37:32  I like I’m so into what you’re saying I totally forgot my next question. [laughter] That was so beautiful. And I think I got so absorbed because that’s something I need to hear right now. So thank you for that.

Cinthia Jaimes  37:44  I’m here to give it to you.

Mónika  37:48  I have seen that you are engaged with beautiful community collaborations: in your community, for your community, with other business owners. Can you speak a little bit about maybe a impactful or significant collaboration that you’ve been a part of?

Cinthia Jaimes  38:04  Thank you. I feel like there’s so many. One of my proudest community collaborations I’ve done so far has definitely been worth to my best friends Maria and Elva, in 2018, and 2019, we saw that there was a big need in our community for professional resources. A lot of the professional networking events that we had all been a part of had been predominantly White had been expensive to attend, you had to pay to attend, there was always an inequality of accessibility to these events that that intention were to help uplift your career. So we got together and we hosted two events. The first was charged for the homeless in 2018, which I can’t believe that like long ago, we wanted to provide professional resources in a networking opportunity for a community without the intimidation of what a lot of predominantly white networking events have had. So that’s why we intentionally named our Headshots for the Homies because we wanted folks to not feel intimidated to come in network, make new friends make new professional connections, we were very gracious to have had Elevate here in Dallas, donate their space to us to help us host the event. And it was definitely an event that went so much better than we could have expected only because we really went into it with just a dream, just a vision of where it could be. And we were so fortunate to have our community believing us important to the event so that it could be something beautiful for so many others. So we were able to provide free headshots for everyone that attended. We had a bunch of other vendors that donate their time and so we had a little bit of a vendor market. We had the chance have a couple of corporate sponsorships so we could provide food for everyone. And it’s total, it’s just such a success to see that, although it is hard work to put on community events, it doesn’t have to be some kind of elaborate thing for it to have an impact on your community. i It’s one of those things if you only see one TYPE of networking event, let’s say and I think Black Tie super intimidating, and you don’t see a lot of folks that look like you at those events. So you feel like you don’t have a space there. So we made our own table for it. We made our own space for it so that our community can have those career resources available to them and have the opportunity to meet new partners and friends that can always look out for each other as they’re traveling through their career.

Mónika  40:53  Are there any Latina businesses that you would like to shout out and let our listeners know about?

Cinthia Jaimes  41:00  There are so many! Some of my favorite Latina businesses right off the top of my head are obviously Cadena Collective. I love my friends. Alejandra and Mabel.

Mónika  41:00  The shirt I’m wearing today.

Cinthia Jaimes  41:12  Yes!

Mónika  41:12  I learned about them through you and I love their stuff.

Cinthia Jaimes  41:15  I love them. Another friend of mine with Luz y Tierra Candles. They are Mexican artisinal candles. I love them. If you’re in Dallas or if you want to, if you’re able to shop online, CocoAndre Chocolatier here in Dallas is amazing. Their Mexican-owned chocolate here and I do believe they do some shipping. I believe. If you like tortillas, organic tortillas, Pinolo Blue is based out of Kansas and they have blue corn tortillas that they work with farmers in Mexico to help import so they help sustainable farming but also help a community of farmers in Mexico. I feel like the majority of my friends are Latina own business owners. I’m gonna shout out my friend Fresa Thrift. She is a vintage shop owner. She does a lot of, a lot of curated work to online and she’s amazing. She’s one of the first people that helped me kind of come into my style  now in recent years to really own the body that I’m in. I felt like when I gained weight, I just dress really frumpy because I didn’t see a lot of curvy women like me dressed up so she’s definitely helped me find my style and be able to dress how I want in the body that I have now.

Mónika  42:38  Yeah. And knowing you I know you have a long long list so when you follow Cin, you will see that there are many, many, many businesses that she supports and shouts out on a regular basis. Are there any favorite Latina photographers that you think we should know about?

Mónika  42:54  We’re gonna lift each other up.

Cinthia Jaimes  42:54  So one of my favorite Latina photographers is my sweet friends Stephanie Rodriguez. Her handle is @stephsphotographytx on Instagram and she’s amazing. It’s so funny to me how I had always had this community, this big community of Latina photographers in my area, I feel like you know, so many Latina photographers in DFW and yet that’s never represented in the photographer’s we see leading the industry or leading online educational spaces, because I mean, I probably follow like over 100 Latino photographers just from this area alone. So it’s never that there’s been a lack of female photographers or Latina photographers, it’s just there’s a barrier, whether I don’t know if it’s us mentally or a mixture of of who has auth, you know, whoever has authority over these educational spaces that we never see ourselves represented there.

Cinthia Jaimes  43:04  So one of my favorite Latina boudoir photographers is Ariana Rodriguez. She is also based out of DFW. She is amazing.

Mónika  44:02  And let’s do one more.

Cinthia Jaimes  44:04  Oh, okay. And one of my newest favorite photographers is divinebrujeria on Instagram. Her name is Jude. She is actually now my Retoucher. So I’m very glad to partner with an Afro Latina to help expand my business and mentor her as she grows as well. And what’s next for you?

Cinthia Jaimes  44:23  I would love to really lean into a photography education position. I really want to fill the gap that I see when it comes to Latina photographer educators to provide free and accessible resources on YouTube and on other platforms and how to influence other women to be kinder to themselves in their body and hopefully heal some of the body image issues and body dysmorphia that we struggle with. I am kind of in like almost a transitional period personally Because I would love to open a photography studio that’s rentable for just photographers, especially one that has equipment for photographers that haven’t had the opportunity to invest in some equipment like lighting equipment or some of the props, but I also really want to move to California, preferably in a year or two. And specifically, I would love to move to the Bay Area

Mónika  45:25  Come on over!

Cinthia Jaimes  45:26  I am ready. So I’m, I’m kind of almost at that fork in the road of what’s next within the next year or two might either be moving to San Francisco, or I’ll be opening a larger photography studio that can be rented out for photographers or events here in Dallas.

Mónika  45:48  All right, shout yourself out. Where can people find you and your work,

Cinthia Jaimes  45:53  People can find me on Instagram and on Tik Tok @cinphotos, or they can check out my website, cinphotos.com.

Mónika  46:00  And everyone that’s in has mentioned will be linked in our show notes. So you can find all those things right in your podcast player. Thank you so much. It’s been such an honor and it’s always so beautiful and wonderful to talk to you. And we look forward to continuing to work together in the future.

Cinthia Jaimes  46:18  Thank you so much for having me, the honor was all mine.

Mónika  46:25  I really appreciated when Cynthia spoke to how we can internalize messages about our bodies, and then have entire portions of our lives that are not documented. I wish my younger self could have heard and understood that. What resonated with you in this conversation? Please go to Apple podcast or Spotify and let others know what you loved about this conversation with Cynthia. Also, be sure to turn on your notifications in this app so you don’t miss when Cynthia’s image tour comes out. She will take you behind the scenes of some of her significant images. Gracias for listening. Our Latina lens podcast is produced, edited and hosted by me, Monika Aldarondo-Lugo. Our theme song was created by Mattijas Mueller. Our logo was designed by Tumpa Mistry. Thank you again for listening.

Mónika  47:26  Laancla Creative sound logo