Glamography Magazine aims to feature everyday women and their stories. Our mission is to give these women the opportunity to break out of their day-to-day, get glammed up a little, and celebrate their true, authentic selves. This is Jessica's feature from the upcoming issue of Glamography:

I struggle a lot with telling people about myself and what my story is. But honesty and transparency are always best, I’ve found, when speaking of oneself. Vulnerability wouldn’t be considered one of my strengths, but I’ll give it a shot!

Mental illness plagued my mom very badly her entire life. So I was shuffled between family members my entire childhood. I lost my mother to suicide when I was only 8 years old, while I was living with my father.

After enduring trauma and abuse I was shuffled around some more before being settled with my grandparents at 12. I struggled with mental illness my entire life, much like my mother.

Depression, anxiety, and adhd made functioning a challenge and it took me many years to get to a healthy place. I have faced homelessness, motherhood, success and failure all on my own.

As a mother, I have found more purpose in my life and drive to succeed and leave generational wealth for my children. This drive prompted me to go back to school and become a Certified Event Specialist and eventually start my own business. Today, I can say that I get to do what I love while building a legacy and raising a small family.

What makes a person beautiful? I believe beauty is in your character and character is comprised of many different parts of a person. Humility, honesty, integrity, strength, compassion, empathy and healthy boundaries are all things I believe make someone beautiful.

I decided to book my photoshoot for branding purposes. I intend to use the photos on my website. Since I am the face of my brand, I wanted decent photos for clients to get a better idea of who I am.

I was very nervous before my photoshoot. Terrified. I feel that I do not photograph well and I was afraid of looking bad in my photos. I was happily wrong! I was seriously nervous about looking at the photos for the first time. Some of them I didn’t care for but a majority of them really captured the essence of who I am as a human being. With Cory’s reassurance I was able to relax and be more practical and less judgmental about my appearance.

This experience was very eye opening. To allow myself to be vulnerable while in a safe space and have to trust someone to capture your truest self in a photo… when normally you’re the type to hide from a camera.

Cory and his team really know how to put someone at ease and help them relax. I really enjoyed the photoshoot and had fun getting to build a set just for my session!

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