Exactly Who We Are: The Portraiture of Jana Marcus === [00:00:00] BEGIN --- Welcome to the Babblery, working, parenting, playing, voting, advocating, and creating as women. [00:00:21] Shannon Murray: When I first saw the picture that went into that magazine, I was like, holy cow, look at her. Look at that lady. Look at that boss lady. You know, I was so excited about it. [00:00:52] Kristi Melani: I don't do a lot of things for myself. I do a lot of things for a lot of other people. [00:00:58] Kimberly Blake Nixon: And when the photos were done, I, I just cried. I mean, I couldn't believe how beautiful they look compared to how not very beautiful I felt at the time. [00:01:14] VOICEOVER: Something special happened in my town during the pandemic. With lots of women Zooming to work from home in their sweatpants, local photographer Jana Marcus got an idea. She'd reach out to middle aged women like her to create a book that celebrated their beauty. Starting with women over 50 and then expanding to women over 40, Jana has ended up with a series of books, four so far, featuring mature women in every pose, from serious headshot to literally displaying her inner warrior. I had seen her work because a lot of women I know had sat for her camera, but what piqued my interest was how they responded to the experience. Over and over, Jana's subjects gushed about the process, even more than the product. Clearly, something besides headshots was happening at her studio. In this episode, you'll hear from seven women featured in the series. You'll hear them all talk about how they felt about their young bodies, their relationship with aging, and why the experience of being photographed in this way was so affirming to their mature sense of self. First, let's meet Jana. [00:02:20] Jana: I'm Jana Marcus. I am a photographer in Santa Cruz, California, and I specialize in portraiture, documentary photography, and theater arts photography. I've been a photographer for over 30 years, and I am the author of three books. [00:02:50] VOICEOVER: In retrospect, Jana's path to doing glamour photographs of older women might seem obvious, but she didn't arrive at this point with intent. In fact, she started adulthood believing that she'd be a concert pianist. But after her father gave her a camera for her 17th birthday, she skipped out on the scholarship to Juilliard and took off for art school in New York. [00:03:11] Jana: I learned how to read music before I learned to read English. I mean, I was three years old. But visually, I think I'm just a visual person. I mean, I remember being a small child and ripping up my mother's magazines and taking out my favorite pictures and creating my own magazines. And as I got older, I realized that I was really obsessed with sort of documenting things. And leaving a record of something, whether it's a person or a place or an experience. [00:03:43] VOICEOVER: Jana tried the fashion world first, and though she loved the work, she was attracted to documentary photography for its ability to tell stories. Jana's photography, in the most simplistic sense, is a document. Jana: It is, it is a document of a frozen moment in time. When I first was a young photographer in art school, I was in love with fashion photography, and I really thought that was something I wanted to go into. And I apprenticed with several fashion photographers in New York and realized that they didn't really care for that world. And as I, you know, went into my 20s, mid 20s, I realized I was much more interested in saying something about the world around me. So documentary photography, kind of became my jam for a long time and did a number of projects, was lucky enough to have a couple of books published. [00:04:32] VOICEOVER: work became well known with her publication of Transfigurations, a book of photographs of transgender people. The book preceded the politicization of the trans experience, and over ten years after it won awards in 2011 and 2012, the experience of viewing the book is raw, immediate, and intimate. But Jana is not one to get stuck in a groove. [00:04:53] Jana: I think with all artists, you know, we continue to want to grow and expand and change what we do. [00:05:00] VOICEOVER: In Jana's case, her work grew and changed as she aged. Women in our society often realize that their work is intrinsically tied to their bodies, even when that wouldn't be the case for a man. For women, our aging bodies go through changes that we experience alone at the same time as changes that we experience in society. The public value of our work changes as we age, sometimes for the better, though often not. [00:05:25] Youth/self-image with intros --- [00:05:25] VOICEOVER: Let's meet some of Jana Marcus's subjects. I asked them to start by speaking about their relationships with their youthful bodies. [00:05:33] GailBorkowski-TRIMMED: My name is Gail Thornton Borkowski. mainly because I was very athletic and physical, so I ran track, I was on drill teams, so I did a lot of physical things when I was a teenager and I was in drama. And I think that's where I really found my own strength, because I really didn't feel like I was beautiful, that I was pretty, you know, I didn't meet that standard that was in existence in the 70s. [00:06:05] Jacqueline Morgan: My name is Jacqueline Morgan .I always knew when I was in my teens and my 20s and my 30s, even my 40s, that it was very unusual to, to have the metabolism that I had and to have kind of the physical presence that I had. And it would be very, very easy to let it define me. And my mom and my two sisters were very good at making sure that I didn't do that. [00:06:32] Sharon DeJong: hi, I'm Sharon Dejong. I'm 60. I had a pretty low self esteem and really bought into that. patriarchal narrative that, you know, women are supposed to be looking a certain way. And I never could, at least I felt like I could never achieve that. [00:06:52] Kimberly Blake Nixon: My name is Kimberly Blake Nixon. I'm 53 years old. From about three until my late twenties, early thirties, I just, I never had any regular job. I just sort of went from job to job and my job was to sing and to dance. And so it was always about, you know, keep your weight down, stay in shape. Smile pretty, always look happy. And so I don't think I ever thought about the future or aging or what it would be like, or who I would be or what my life would look like. I mean, I kind of in a very shallow level, I always had this idea, like, you know, well, I know one thing, I'm not going to be one of these plastic surgery women, right? And so I didn't do a lot of thinking about my future until things started to slow down in my late 20s. [00:07:40] Kimberly Scott: My name is Kimberly Scott. I am 62 years old, and I am in an interesting time of life. I've left an, kind of an old version of myself behind, and I'm moving into a new realm, I'm pretty sure that my relationship with my body before I really began aging. I think I really took things for granted, and I don't think that's uncommon. We just, we don't know what we don't know. Of course, we witness and see people who are older in the world, but because it hasn't happened to us, it's hard to envision that experience. [00:08:19] Shannon Murray: My name is Shannon Murray. How I felt in the world in my younger days. First of all, I, I'm a perennial tomboy, so I always felt like one of the boys, but also slash very feminine at times. And I was physical I, I came into my body, my adult form, way earlier than my peers. And, the rest of everything else in my life, I've been a late bloomer, like I would say emotionally. Like in terms of like when I graduated from college, I was 30. I got married when I was in my 30s. I had my daughter when I was in my 30s. [00:08:54] Kristi Melani: Kristi Melani. I am 51 years old. 100 percent Capricorn. I was bullied heavily in seventh and eighth grade and a little bit on my ninth and 10th grade. That's when I started to realize that this world wasn't as kind as I thought it was, especially to females. I was a late bloomer and the boys would tease me and actually called me the, the great plains. I had really curly, crazy hair, braces. No boobs. I realized probably high school and really not until college that I found my voice. [00:09:36] VOICEOVER: Gail, Jacqueline, Sharon, the Kimberleys, Shannon, and Kristi all started in different places, but as you hear them speak, you'll notice some common themes, and one of them is that their relationship to their older bodies is significantly different from how they felt as teens and young women. It's that relationship that intrigued Jana Marcus as a photographer. In making these portraits, Jana is melding her personal experiences with her professional background in fashion and documentary photography, and she is well aware of the impact that the time we live in has on her work. [00:10:09] Origins of project --- [00:10:09] Jana: We live in an age where images have come to be known to be digitally enhanced. The onset of um, AI is scary in many different industries, but especially in photography for a number of reasons. But pictures can be massaged. And so today, just like with the media news outlets, what is true? You know, and it's, we can't, in the old days, you know, you used to pick up a newspaper and see a picture of a war happening around the world or whatever was being reported on. And we always took those images to be truth. This is real. What I'm looking at is real because it was taken by a camera, held in the hands of a real person who was there. But that's not true today anymore. I try, I had always strived to be very objective, to tell an important story that would go out to a larger audience, a larger world, and and that's important. And it's important how we represent the subjects within our art form because we're telling their story for them. And a lot of times in my documentary work, I'm photographing people who don't have a voice of their own. And so by putting images out into the world, whether it's in a book or a gallery or what have you my representation of them is going to become what the world thinks of them. it is also a reflection of our culture and our culture, especially here in America, is of the young and being young is what makes us vital and important according to cultural norms. And so as I myself have aged I went through a big change in my fifties in terms of my career and, and just things in my life. And. I just spent a lot of time thinking about other women in my age group. You know, I think that. You know, when, by the time women hit their fifties, they're very accomplished, you know, whether it's been careers, in business, raising families, all the ups and downs of life, but they have this knowledge, you know, that I think is so important to be shared and to listen to, and to not be tossed away or forgotten as is so often seen in our culture, which celebrates youth. So I actually just really wanted to change the narrative around that. [00:12:29] Aging --- [00:12:29] Kimberly Scott: I remember my very first wrinkle and I went, Oh, okay, it's happening. I think even there was a small part of me then, like, I just need to lean, lean into this. This is, this is happening, whether I want it to or not. I have that awareness now around that notion of just being, you know, every moment is a privilege and a gift. [00:12:55] Kimberly Blake Nixon: And then it was not so much about aging. It was more about like, holy crap, what am I going to do with the rest of my life? Like, I just thought I was just going to ride this easy wave of success and everything was going to be fine. And it was for a very long time. And I'm super appreciative of that. But when you wake up one day and you're in your late twenties, which is a very different place from your early twenties, and you've had a career as a a young person in modeling and TV commercials and singing and dancing on Broadway and making records where it's all about what you look like. You sort of don't really see time creeping on because you're just everyday in hair and makeup and everybody's always making you look your very best all the time. So you sort of don't think about what normal, regular day to day life is, because that's not the reality of your job, and as a career focused woman you know, it's like, well, you know, as long as I keep my weight down, I keep in shape. And pretty soon, you know, 10, 20, 30 years go by and you sort of look in the mirror and you're like, oh, god,, I am not what I was and it happened over 30 years and yet it seemed instantaneous, like by the time you really had a moment in life after work and marriage and kids and moving around And you really look in the mirror and you're like, Oh my gosh, good thing I have all those other photos from when I used to be this and I used to be that, because like, nobody wants to see what's happening now. Don't, you know, pay no attention to the person behind the curtain kind of a thing, where like, don't really look at me. [00:14:40] VOICEOVER: That was Kimberly Scott followed by Kimberly Blake Nixon. I love the difference in their attitudes about aging. Kimberly Scott took a real lean in mentality, making note of that wrinkle and turning it into a moment of awareness. But Kimberly Nixon, having left a career where her face was central to her work, chose to put her head down and forget about looks. Here's Jacqueline. [00:15:02] Jacqueline Morgan: I was have always been very in tune with my physical body and I have been blessed my whole life with a very naturally athletic, you know, eat everything you want, and never gain any weight very little effort to stay kind of healthy and, and muscular until I hit about 48. And then menopause just kicked the shit out of me. It's a great equalizer. It's the great equalizer. [00:15:36] VOICEOVER: And yes, then there's menopause. Like so many aspects of women's bodies, this natural process is often turned negative. Although women talk about these changes as a single thing, menopause, and aging in general, is a process that happens in steps. One of the steps for many of us is our changing hair. Gail had grown up with the knowledge that as a Black woman, her hair was not just aesthetic, it was political. So going gray was a long process for her. [00:16:04] GailBorkowski-TRIMMED: It's humbling, too, because I don't think we think about how our bodies will change as we mature. And that's what I like to say, as we mature, so. Oh yeah, I mean my my husband was a little older than I am, and and so he started to gray. And of course, you know, men don't tend to dye their hair, or and I remember my husband saying to me, when are you going to just let it go gray? And I was like, Oh gosh, no. I definitely acknowledge my buying into the fact that, you know, a man may look distinguished with gray temples, but I definitely didn't think I looked distinguished with gray temples . And what would happen each time I was just about ready to say, Oh gosh, I gotta go get it dyed. Someone would say, Oh, your hair looks so nice or something like that. And that would kind of stop me from going forward with, you know, dyeing it again. And then after a certain point, I got to a place of where it was, okay, I'm, I'm good. I can't either I'm going to dye it all now or I'm going to keep riding with the gray. So, and it really is something to see yourself to, you know, seeing ourselves with this different kind of crown, right, that frames our faces and frames our, you know, visual perspective and, you know, the way other people see us. [00:17:29] VOICEOVER: And then there's the relationships with the men in our lives. Husbands, relatives, friends, co workers. Gail's husband was supportive of her gray hair, but many men have accepted older women with dyed hair as the norm. When an older woman steps out of the norm, she hears about it. [00:17:46] Jacqueline Morgan: When I let my hair go gray, oh my Lord, people took enormous offense. Like I have never, I had more men comment to me on, what are you doing with your hair? Are you trying to be blonde? Why would you do that? And my husband took it the hardest. Oh my good lord. Yeah. It was the hardest for him. So, and I didn't care. It's time to really normalize just being a woman and that that includes a variety of different phases. We don't have to define it as being in our 20s or our 50s or our 80s. It's just who you are at that very specific moment in time. [00:18:27] How we present in the world --- [00:18:28] Kristi Melani: I have a very rare form of vertigo, so I've had to, it's been about four years almost, I've had to kind of re learn some things and, and re look at my life, so, and that's kind of, that's what brought me here. I don't have a cane anymore, but I did. I had a cane and a walker, so I've come a long way. It definitely puts it into perspective as well. It was the first time I really started to feel my age, because I couldn't do things that I wanted to do, but I realized that was more of a vertigo thing, not actually that I couldn't really do it. So I had to kind of get over that. [00:19:14] VOICEOVER: The women you've been listening to are all subjects of photographer Jana Marcus, who started a project to photograph women over 40 during the pandemic. When The Babblery returns, we'll explore what happened when these women reluctantly or eagerly entered Jana's studio. [00:19:40] Kimberly Blake Nixon: It was almost embarrassing how shy and unsure of myself the lack of confidence. I'm sure it was written all over my face. [00:19:51] Part 2: The meaning of our beauty --- [00:19:51] VOICEOVER: This is your host, Suki Wessling. We're speaking with photographer Jana Marcus and some of the mature women who have sat for her glamour portraiture.. As she aged, Kristi experienced the world as a woman with a disability, which forced her to accept physical limitations she hadn't had to face before. But many years earlier, she ran up against another kind of limitation, being too attractive in a world that equates female beauty with a lack of seriousness and intelligence. [00:20:50] Kristi Melani: This was about 15 years ago, it was in my performance review. a female manager, and I brought in my notepad, I was ready to go, it was my performance review. And she started the review off and said, I think you have to ugly it up a little bit. And I said, I'm sorry? Said, I think you need to ugly it up a little bit so people will take you seriously. So she told me, you know, go buy some glasses or something. It'll make you look smarter. And we got through the rest of the review. I heard nothing else. Cause that's all I, I heard was, holy cow. Okay. And I went to the mall afterwards and I put on some fake glasses and I took a picture, sent it to my husband and go, well, what do you think? He said, well, now you look like a sexy librarian. So the next day I went in and I had my red lipstick on and my high heels and a big old nice power suits. And I was, I thought, she's probably looking at me going you didn't understand the assignment, did ya? [00:21:55] VOICEOVER: Men and women have to present their physical selves in the world, and women like Kristi are often judged harshly because of how they look. But Gail also spoke about how another aspect of how she looked was carried by her whole family. [00:22:09] GailBorkowski-TRIMMED: Hair is a big deal in my culture, in my family culture, for sure. So, there was a whole thing about, you know, you don't go outside with your head looking good. You know, looking like you ain't got no people. So you always had to dress. And one of the things that my, one of my uncles used to say was, If your head looks good and your feet looks good, nothing in between matters. Meaning that people look at your head, your hair, and they look at your shoes. And what you're wearing on your feet. I think that that really spoke a lot to our cultural upbringing and what we came out of, most certainly from slavery. Slavery wasn't that far ago. It's not that detached from my personal family history, in a sense, either. So I think that looking at how we present in the world really comes down to how I feel like we feel about how we look ourselves. So we may be wearing an outfit that's, we think it's the bomb, and all it takes is somebody close to us saying, You're wearing that? [00:23:21] VOICEOVER: The discomfort that women feel in their skin can start early, and the effects of small comments can follow them for years. Here's Kristi. [00:23:29] Kristi Melani: I grew up in the most loving family. My, my parents are still a huge part of my life. Everybody wanted them as my parents and my grandparents because everybody was still loving and, you know, nobody ever said anything except for a great great aunt who I saw her one time and she said, hey, you look fat like, oh, okay. Oh, I remember like it was yesterday. I also remember that my grandfather, god rest his soul, at the time just laid into her like how dare you say that how you because you only need that one stone to be thrown to where you're just going, Oh, he's right. He's right. You know, and but it's always been something on my mind. I'm currently on a, you know, very low calorie diet because I, I don't feel comfortable in my skin or my clothes. It's like, it's constant, which not my favorite. I want to worry about other things. [00:24:29] VOICEOVER: Jacqueline explains that her experiences, first with a life of being fit and healthy, and then with menopause, led her to have a different point of view on how young women should consider their beauty. [00:24:40] Jacqueline Morgan: If you, if you really take a look at the full spectrum of life, you're going to live till maybe 80, maybe even longer, who knows if you're healthy if that's what you're focused on and anchored on, you're in big trouble. It's going to be great for the first 30 years, but after that you're screwed, basically. [00:24:58] Being photographed --- [00:24:58] VOICEOVER: When Jana Marcus's portrait subjects arrive at her studio, they carry all the insecurity that being a woman in our culture can create. So many women say, as Jacqueline will tell us, that they don't photograph well. Their discomfort shows in photos taken of them. Older women often display their beauty more easily in candid photos when they don't notice the camera focused on them. When they pose, they look stiff and uncomfortable, holding their faces and bodies in ways that they have been told are more flattering. I would have expected someone who started adulthood as a professional actress to be more comfortable in front of Jana's camera. But as Kimberly explains, her past experience was no help when it came to presenting herself at the studio as an older woman. She had been avoiding looking at her aging self for so many years, the actress she had been was well hidden. [00:25:50] Kimberly Blake Nixon: It was almost embarrassing how introverted and shy and unsure of myself and the lack of confidence. I'm sure it was written all over my face. And so that was the moment that I thought, well, if I can, let's just take some photos and see how that feels. You know, I wasn't really ready to like get in front of anybody. But I took some photos just to see how that would feel. That was the first step. [00:26:22] Jacqueline Morgan: I'm one of those people that I've spent my entire life avoiding being photographed. I despise having my photo taken because I just, I, I, I quote unquote don't photograph well. And so this was really super uncomfortable for me. It was like somebody was turning my skin inside out, being slayed alive. [00:26:46] VOICEOVER text: That was Jacqueline, who doesn't at all appear as someone being flayed alive in the photos Jana took of her. How did Jana do it? It's all about trust. [00:26:55] Jana: You know, I've had women, women who have been very overweight. terrified of being photographed. And I always say to them, you know what, this is all about how I pose you. This is all about how I light you. I'm going to put you in the most beneficial light and pose for your body type. Trust me. And that's really, you know, portraiture really is a dance between the photographer and the subject and finding that comfort level where their expressions can be natural and real. [00:27:24] GailBorkowski-TRIMMED: I don't feel like, I feel like I have a, not a traditional, like I'm not this beauty and in traditional, like, sort of American views or whatever. And I just didn't. I didn't feel that. It was, it really played on my own personal insecurities about putting myself out there for judgment kind of thing. [00:27:47] Kimberly Blake Nixon: The first hour was torture for both her and I. And for somebody like me, I went from not caring at all to now, all of a sudden I cared so much that nothing was ever going to be good enough. And she really talked me off the ledge through the whole shoot. And by the end, I was just having a blast. And it, but you could see the progression in the photos when we went back and looked in the photos, each outfit, the pictures just got better and better because I got more and more comfortable in my own skin with what I was working with. [00:28:23] VOICEOVER: That was Gail and then Kimberly talking about how their sessions changed their perspective. Soon, as word spread of Jana's project, women started to come to her with a new agenda. They wanted to take a feeling that had grown inside of them and express it in the photographs. [00:28:39] The Warrior Women --- [00:28:39] Jana: During the pandemic, I had a number of therapists who wanted to come and dress as warriors. And when this first started, I thought, what's that about? You know, and one of them said to me, well, I feel like I've been through battle helping everybody with their mental health. And I just want to show my inner warrior. And I had so many people, so many women, who wanted to be warriors. I wound up buying an entire set of armor. [00:29:06] VOICEOVER: Here's Jacqueline explaining what she sees when she looks at her warrior photos. [00:29:11] Jacqueline Morgan: And I think that that really epitomizes the, the visual image that I had always presented to the world and taking control of that again. Taking control of it and saying, you know what? Yeah, this is who I am. This is who I am. And I'm okay with that. If anybody else is or isn't, that's really not the point. And I think that's why I chose the, the portrait that I chose with Jana is that very kind of warrior that warrior pose. [00:29:56] Jana: I think even the most courageous woman who wants to step in front of the camera because it does take courage is nervous. Everyone is nervous before they come. But, you know, that's about trust. It's about me building trust, you know, and I found this even in my documentary work it's about building trust with your subject. I have had women who have crossed the threshold of the studio and broken into tears. You know, absolutely terrified to be in front of the camera. But by the time the session's over, they are giggling with joy. They've had so much fun and they're just like, I'm so glad I didn't cancel. I had more fun today than ever. I have to say that every woman that's come has been wonderful to have in front of the camera, to see them kind of. Let loose and sort of blossom in front of the camera to be who they are and who they want to be seen, what inner part of themselves they want to have be seen. [00:30:49] Looking at photos --- [00:30:49] VOICEOVER: So you take a bunch of women, most of whom cringe at photographs that get taken of them. They may be uncomfortable with their gray hair, uncomfortable with their weight, uncomfortable with how others see them. What happens when a peer, a woman in their demographic, depicts them as beautiful, strong, and definitely worth looking at? Here's Kimberly Scott. [00:31:40] Kimberly Scott: Oh my gosh, what do I see when I look at the photographs? I, I see my essence. So often, we tend to be hard on ourselves and how we appear, and I think that's a great disservice that we do to ourselves. So this is, this is a living example. This magazine is a living example of who I truly am, all the power I have in the world, that energy and beauty that I bring to the world, and I love it. [00:32:10] Jana: We all know that photography is powerful, and I have known that for years, but I don't think I really recognized how personally powerful photography can be for an individual until I was at an exhibit in the early 2000s of my work Transfigurations that was touring. And there were these large portraits, 30 by 40, of transgender women. And when I walked into the exhibit, there was this woman who was completely in tears in front of this one photograph, like bawling her eyes out. And as I got closer, I realized it was the woman in the photograph. And she was looking at it, and she was crying and crying, and I looked at her and I said, Oh my gosh, are you okay? What's, what's, what's going on? And she said, You captured me in this photograph the way I wanted the world to see me, and I didn't think anyone did. [00:33:05] VOICEOVER: Jana Marcus's Transfigurations book took a group of people that many believe even today should be in hiding, and she literally shed a light on them. Not just their bodies, but the essence of who they were in the world. Her series with mature women is doing the same for people who also have been taught that they have to hide aspects of their gender in order to fit societal expectations. Here's Sharon. [00:33:30] Sharon DeJong: I had put on weight during COVID, like many of us. And I was, I told her, I go, I'm a little intimidated. I've put on some weight. She's like, listen, don't you worry about anything. Don't worry about one thing. We're going to make, you know, you're beautiful. We're going to, we're going to do this. And so that was kind of the only thing that I was apprehensive about. But I was actually really looking forward to it because she did such beautiful, I saw her work and it was so beautiful. Oh, I see beauty. I see courage. I see fuck the patriarchy. I see love. I see my inner child. I see a hippie. Yeah, she brought out I, yeah, she brought, brought out my peace. [00:34:20] Jacqueline Morgan: I think I really tried to embrace it by showing up with props, by giving some thought to what I wanted and, and really kind of why. And I was inspired by the other women who had gone before me and, and I'm flipping kind of through the photos that they had taken, the gallery that that Jana had, and I really tried to put aside that, that little girl fear, and I can tell you that I've been relatively unsuccessful at that because, although I did the session, and I embraced it, and kind of we went for it. I haven't shared the photos with anybody except my youngest daughter. I've spent some time thinking about why is that, right? And I'm not sure that I've gotten completely to the bottom of it, partially because it's a very private thing. I didn't do it for anybody else except for me. I didn't do it for anybody else except for me. I didn't spend all that money and all that time and all that effort for anybody else but me. And so, why would I? Everybody that I would show it to would have some kind of reaction. And do I really care about that? Do I need it? No, I, I mean, and I don't mean it, and I don't mean to suggest. That I don't care about other people's opinions, because that wouldn't, that wouldn't be honest. But, it wasn't an activity that I undertook to benefit from their opinions. I really actually just did this crazy thing for me, you know? Well, now, don't, I mean, I do have, I mean, I kind of did the, the fantasy photo, right? That was the bulk of it. And then I asked at the end Jana to shoot a couple headshots. And I do, I am using her headshot for LinkedIn, but I'm not using the real point of this session at all, at all. I might someday, but for now I take it out and look at them. I take it out and look at them. But I'm not I don't need anybody else's input. [00:36:49] VOICEOVER: That's Jacqueline, who is the only person I spoke to who is keeping her photos for herself. [00:36:54] Kristi Melani: I want to feel like I'm still, still got it and sexy and very confident looking. And we, I think we accomplished it. And yes, when I showed my husband, yes, yes. He kept going, can I, can I get this? Can I, like, are these mine? [00:37:14] Kimberly Blake Nixon: And when the photos, were done. I, I just cried. I mean, I couldn't believe how beautiful they look compared to how not very beautiful I felt at the time. [00:37:31] Kristi Melani: And the way I was looking straight into the camera. It was like I was staring into the soul of somebody who was looking at the picture. And I took a picture when I was 16 with, you know, I don't know, some modeling agency, quote unquote, right? And it was almost the exact pose. So I put them side by side and I sent it to her and said, you know what? I like the picture from now better because it showed just more personality and, and wisdom. Even the choice of clothes that I chose was not, it was not anything super, super fancy. I mean, I'm wearing combat boots in one of the pictures and a leather jacket and, and the wind and everything is just going, that's badass. Right? I mean, and, and what I had told her ahead of time was kind of what, that's what I was going for. [00:38:29] VOICEOVER: When we return, older women break out of the box that society has put us in, all because of a photograph. [00:38:44] Part 3: Inside out --- [00:39:33] VOICEOVER: I'm your host, Suki Wessling. When Jana Marcus's portraiture subjects saw the photographs she created, they didn't just see a picture of their faces and bodies. Because of the relationship of trust that Jana builds with her subjects, they relaxed into an experience that for most of them was foreign. They were the center of attention, the focus of interest. They were able to express the full range of who they were, even those parts they had sometimes been forced to minimize or even hide. [00:40:25] Kristi Melani: And then there was another one where it was just, as my mom said, Wow, you look fierce. And that is the type of leader I want to be looked at as a, as a fierce woman in a pretty male dominated tech space that I'm in. And I thought, Oh man, you know what? You're, you're right. And I updated my LinkedIn profile with it because I thought that's how I want to look. Cause the other one that I had done, it was very cozy. And I, I really, so it was a combination of kind of bringing out the sexy side because I don't want to stop being sexy to my husband. You know, I don't want to stop looking in the mirror and, and thinking, eh, you know, I could pull this off. But also that kind of fierceness was pretty powerful. [00:41:22] GailBorkowski-TRIMMED: I showed it to my son, who's in his early 20s, mid 20s now, and he looked at it and he went, wow, Mom, wow, because he's never seen that. And then he wound up posting it on his Instagram. And then he tells me the next day when I saw him, he said, yeah, Mom, you blew up Instagram. I went. How? I don't have an Instagram account. He goes, Oh yeah, well I posted it on mine. I said, Oh, well, thank you. And that was a huge compliment to me, I felt, and to Jana, that she had been able to capture this and, and reflect this other aspect of myself that I didn't see. [00:42:03] VOICEOVER: That was Gail, an unexpected Instagram star. Here are Kristi and Shannon speaking about how the photographs were important for themselves. [00:42:11] Kristi Melani: I don't do a lot of things for myself. I do a lot of things for a lot of other people. It's probably not an odd response to hear from women in general. I, I'm constantly doing things for everybody else. And I thought, you know what? I took the day off work, got my hair done, you know, the nails done, and I thought, I'm just going to do it. And if I don't like it, then I don't like them. You know, it's okay. But boy, what a fun day. What a fun day. [00:42:43] Shannon Murray: When I first saw the picture that went into that magazine, I was like, holy cow, look at her. Look at that lady. Look at that boss lady. You know, I was so excited about it. You know, she just, she works magic. She knows how to draw things out of people that no one else can. And the pose is just like badass disco boss is what it looks like. And I'm like, yes, you know, I was just so tickled over that and it was so empowering. It's like that's who I am in my head. That's one of the many people I am in my head, but there she is. Never saw her out in the wild before. I love it. [00:43:14] Jana: There have been, you know, certain photo shoots that have really stood out for me. And I think that they've mostly been the women who have just allowed themselves to be free in front of the camera, you know, and not worry about the angle, not worry about the clothes. Not worry about the superficial things, but just say, this is me, photograph me . [00:43:35] Breaking out of the box --- [00:43:35] VOICEOVER: It's so easy for women to fall into a cage of sorts, a sort of older woman box that society has created. Here's Kimberly Nixon and Sharon talking about how the photographs help them break out of that box. [00:43:49] Kimberly Blake Nixon: By the time you're in your 50s, so much of life has happened and you are so used to working or taking care of others and putting everybody before yourself that to take that day and just have it all about them, I think for all of us was really liberating in a way that I'm not so sure I expected because I just thought well like I'm just looking for one good headshot in a for she's going to snap pictures for four hours. I'm bound to come out with one, like one good picture is all I needed. So and it really, it was that for me seeing those photos and being a part of that project was the ultimate turning point for me and my whole life has changed. [00:44:35] Sharon DeJong: Even though sometimes I feel like we're moving backwards, I do feel That, that is starting to die off and that women are a lot stronger and a lot more fierce than they think they are. And I think they're starting to realize that, you know, like it just like love, we can love ourselves for exactly who we are. You know, you got extra rolls on your ? , Go get it! Like, you know, it's okay. It's okay. You got chin hairs? Who cares? Like, just love exactly who you are for exactly who you are. And I, I, what I love is that I see younger women that are not buying into the crap that women that were born in the 60s 50s and 60s and 70s. We're buying into. I, I do see a more empowered force on this planet today where, where women are concerned and that makes me really happy. [00:45:41] Kristi Melani: I'm not, I'm not ready, even though I got my AARP card, I'm not kidding you, like, three days after I got my picture taken, like, God, isn't that lovely? It's so sweet, although I'm told that the discounts are amazing, I just haven't really uh, you know, utilized it, but I mean, talk about a strange dichotomy of, like, ooh, I'm so sexy, and then it was, here's your ARP, Oh, man, nice little reminder. [00:46:08] Kimberly Blake Nixon: Comparing yourself to the very best version of any woman ever is really a hard, that's a hard place to get to for most people. It's just not realistic. And the truth is that the more comfortable you are in your own skin, the more beautiful you look to yourself. And everybody else I mean, nothing's, nothing's more awkward than someone who's just uncomfortable in a room with how they look or feel at any given moment. The reason that so much happened so quickly was that I just got out of my own way and stopped being afraid that I wouldn't be what I was because guess what? You will never be what you were and that doesn't matter what you were before. You know, 50 years plus on in your life now, you're just not going to be ever what you were in your teens or 20s or 30s or 40s. And just like, you know, in my 70s, I won't be anything like I am today. But I'm excited now about that, what that future looks like, because it reminded me that just because. I am older now. It doesn't mean that I can't still have crazy dreams that are a little bit wild. Like, I don't have to tame my life just because I got old and have to be responsible. [00:47:36] VOICEOVER: Shannon and Kimberly Scott both share a sense that the photographs helped them see what was inside them all along. They hope that other women learn to show their inner strength to the outer world. [00:47:48] Shannon Murray: It's made me more aware of like being my own person and not giving in to other people, not being rude or pushy, just going, no, I don't want to do that. You know, and if you want to do it, that's fine. I'm either going to stay here and do this. We don't have to do everything together in life, you know. And so it's freed up that part of me that, you know, I was always independent, but it's made me really independent. And it's subconsciously, subliminally, like invited more people into my, my realm of being, you know, when you're just kind of blazing a trail through life and you're stopping and smelling the roses and on your own time and doing your own thing and saying hello to people, you know. I've become more of that person than I felt I've been in my heart the whole time. I never saw myself truly as perfect or imperfect. I always saw myself as someone who is in progress and I still see myself that way. [00:48:37] Kimberly Scott: We are so, so hard on ourselves and we are extraordinary creatures. We really are. We are so powerful. We, we, I want women to just, and including myself, you know, it, it's, I am just stepping into saying really kind things about myself. I have a knowing within, but just saying it out loud like I just did a few minutes ago, that's, That's new and it's important and we all have it and it's finding that within and I want that for all humans, women and men and, and all, everyone. [00:49:24] Final thoughts --- [00:49:24] VOICEOVER: Jana Marcus is currently focused on a project far from photography. Her research into a family murder mystery led to Line of Blood, a book detailing the research and the conclusions she drew from it. Her grandmother is a significant player in the story and Jana pointed out to me that women in her grandmother's time had so few choices. [00:49:44] Jana: I had a very love hate relationship with her. There was times that she was wonderful and there was times that she was absolutely ruthless and nasty. There was a time when she said, she sat my sister and I down and said that she was disowning us because we were not the kind of grandchildren she wanted. It's like, oh, what were you looking for? It was just weird. She was strange. I mean, she, I think today we would call her bipolar, but back then there were no words for it. I did have a very love hate relationship with her, but I think by the end of my journey of, of, of discovering and writing Line of Blood, I realized something about who she was that shaped who she was. And it helped me to understand her. I think learning about her made me really think about what women's roles were, you know in the early twenties of the 20th century. I mean, what choices did women really have if they wanted to be independent and make money? They became a nurse or a teacher or they went into, you know, house labor. And women didn't have opportunities to make money and be independent. And my grandmother wanted that. And she used men to get money. She just did what she had to do. [00:51:04] VOICEOVER: In our time we are less hemmed in, but Jana sees her portraiture work as helping women break out of bonds they might not even have noticed. [00:51:13] Jana: I understand how powerful it is to see yourself in a beautiful photograph and it can change your whole perspective about yourself. And so I wanted to offer that at the studio and have women come and have a day where they could kind of recharge their batteries, have a makeover, feel good about themselves, and be photographed any way that they want to be photographed. And sort of bring that to life for them. And it's, it's been an incredibly empowering experience, not only for all the women who have come, but it's been that for me as well, you know, to really connect with all these women and, I think my goal is, is just to have every woman sort of fall in love with herself again. [00:52:02] GailBorkowski-TRIMMED: One of the pictures that she took, I actually have so that when I wake up in the morning , there it is. And it reminds me to smile and to just, it just, it's that kind of thing. I keep that picture. I have a few of them, but that's the one that I keep putting up there because I want to wake up and say, Yeah, that's me. [00:52:21] Jana: You know, I think we, we get detached from ourselves after a certain age. We're very driven, once again, by our families or our businesses or our careers. But it's important to take that moment to kind of reconnect with ourselves and appreciate ourselves right now in this very moment, whether there's lines or gray hair or extra pounds, it doesn't take away from how important you are as a human being and what you have to contribute back to the world. [00:52:49] Sharon DeJong: I feel more empowered as a female, as an older female. I feel like standing stronger in who I am. I know that I can radiate love, which somehow swimming with my whole feminist nature. I don't know, it's like, she helped me connect all that stuff and make it okay to be all those things. [00:53:14] Jana: You know, I think gender is performative. Every day I, as a woman, get up and brush my hair and put a little makeup on and do this, and I'm actually performing my gender. Men do the same thing. We don't even realize that we're doing it. My parents always raised my sister and I to believe that creating art and giving back to society was the most important thing you could do in your life. And that had great amount of pros and cons. And as my sister and I grew up, we realized we couldn't make a living at anything that we wanted to do creatively. But we were driven, you know, as artists to continually explore that and try to shape it, to have meaning in the world and, and give back. So that was the path our parents put us on. I think with, with the portraits of the 50 over 50 I think for me, it fits in with all the documentary work I've done, which is just trying to give a voice to people who don't have a voice, you know, and to sort of show a, vital, important, here we are, you know, don't miss out. Don't forget about us. We're here. [00:55:38] VOICEOVER: Thanks to Jana Marcus for sharing her work and perspectives. You can see her photographs and books at Janamarcus. com. Special thanks to all the women who took the time to speak about their personal experiences. [00:55:50] GailBorkowski-TRIMMED: Gail Thornton Borkowski [00:55:52] Jacqueline Morgan: Jacqueline Morgan [00:55:53] Sharon DeJong: Sharon Dejong [00:55:54] Kimberly Blake Nixon: Kimberly Blake Nixon [00:55:56] Kimberly Scott: Kimberly Scott [00:55:57] Kristi Melani: Kristi Melani [00:55:58] Shannon Murray: Shannon Murray [00:55:59] VOICEOVER: The songs, You Are a Beautiful Girl and Kathleen Mavournan, were provided by the National Jukebox. The song, I Love Your Hair, by June and Jean Millington, is from the freemusicarchive. org. Find links to all media on the Babblery website. Thanks for listening. [00:56:27] END ---