Life & Work with Lindsay Carlisle of Downtown Los Angeles

Today we’d like to introduce you to Lindsay Carlisle.

Hi Lindsay, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I started my portrait journey back in 2014, when I photographed beauty portraits for women in Oakland and the rest of the East Bay. After a lot of cold calling and knocking on doors, I had some local business owners that took a chance on me as a brand new artist. They agreed to help me promote my business to their clients- mostly local salons in Oakland and Berkeley. Through these relationships, (and lots of gumption and grit!) I was able to book some of my very first portrait clients.

For the first year of photographing boudoir, I worked primarily in my client’s homes. After some time, I started to rent spaces for our shoots and then around 2017 I started offering photo shoots in my live/work loft in Oakland.

In 2019 I began working in Los Angeles as well as Tulum, Mexico. I still offer sessions in both locations throughout the year.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I think being an entrepreneur, especially as a photographer, is never a smooth road. Photography is a tough industry, as everyone has a camera and most of everyone can call themselves a photographer in one sense or another. The industry as a whole I would say has increasingly struggled for respect.

More personally, there are inherent struggles in serving multiple locations. It is a constant effort to market to new audiences and even to maintain a sense of community across these locations.

And as with any profession, the industry continues to change. The audience evolves as well and we have to continuously be evolving with it.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I’m a boudoir photographer known for uplifting my clients through a therapeutic photo shoot experience. What I believe sets me apart from other boudoir photographers is my background in counseling and psychology. Since so many of my clients are coming to me after going through major life transitions, I’m able to guide them through their photo experience with a lot of compassion and support for their journey. Many times offering guidance or at the least, a loving environment and working relationship that I like to think helps them on their transformational path. Getting to combine my background in counseling with portraiture is something I’ve very proud of. It feels like what I was made to do this work.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.lindsaycarlisleboudoir.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lindsaycarlisleboudoir
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LindsayCarlisleBoudoir