Everyone please welcome Beth Hawkes to A Broadway Body: Continued Conversations! As both an actor and photographer of actors, Beth is a multi-talented creative human being. I met Beth online in a business program in 2020, and I’ve shot with her in-person three times now! Each time I’ve done a shoot with her, she’s beautifully captured my essence as a human being at that particular time in my life, which has been lovely to experience.

In our conversation, we discuss… Where the line of body image encouragement yet honoring each individual's insecurities lies; Beth’s incredible ability to capture her subjects’ true essence; the non-physical aspects of our acting careers that can lead us to deepening with character, and therefore bookings; wearing the clothes that we actually feel good in and love to our photoshoots and auditions so we can show up present and involved (instead of worrying about how we look/fussing with our hot shorts); and accepting our changing bodies as we move through different phases of our big, beautiful lives.

Beth’s lens on encouraging her clients to accept their bodies for how they are while also honoring each client’s individual thoughts and feelings around their bodies is incredibly nuanced and beautiful. She values her relationship between herself (as photographer) and her clients. It’s clear how important making them feel comfortable in front of her camera is. She ultimately wants her clients to show up as their best selves to their shoots, and we discuss how us actors can get out of our own ways when shooting with a photographer, so we can hopefully get some pretty authentic photos of ourselves. Spoiler alert: shooting with Beth will be the confidence boost you didn’t know you needed. I cannot wait for you to hear our conversation!

“ At the end of the day, who you are authentically and the way that you show up and the energy you bring, all of that is what sets you apart from everybody else because there's no one like you at all. And so, it's one thing to be like, “Oh my gosh, [the industry is] so focused on the way that I look and all these things,” but it's another thing to also say, “Yeah, but nobody else looks like me, and that's like such a gift.” And so, at a certain level, it's not really about who's the most talented. It's about who's the guy [for the job]. It could be about looks maybe, but a lot of the times it's about energy and the way that you approach whatever you're auditioning for and all the life experience that's been behind you to bring you to this point today and the way that you approach it.”

- Beth Hawkes

Megan Gill: Hey Beth, I'm so excited to have you for this conversation today!

Beth Hawkes: I am so excited to be here. Thank you so much for having me, Megan!

Megan Gill: Of course. Do you want to start with just chatting a little bit about yourself and introducing who you are and your work?

Beth Hawkes: Yeah. So my name is Beth Hawkes. I'm an LA based actor and photographer. And I have been doing photography professionally for the last five and a half/six years or so. I started in the pandemic because, like so many actors, the entertainment industry was completely at a standstill. And everybody kind of started to think what else do I have besides acting? And photography was the thing that I always loved and I always had done in college and high school, just shooting my friends and having, you know, little photo shoots for free doing their head shots. And then I decided, well, okay, what would it look like if I turned this into a business? And kind of it could be perfect being able to, you know, have control over my schedule and to be able to stay connected in the industry as well.

Yeah, and then that's where I met you, which was our program that we did with Ashli Pollard, Square One Accelerator, which was learning how to build your business and create systems to make it as efficient as possible. And I learned a lot, and that really is what launched my photography business. And it's ebbed and flowed over the years for sure. There have been times where I have kind of let it go by the wayside and then times where I've really gone for it. And now, it's really my full-time income, which is great. And yeah. And then here and there I'll, you know, I'll get the acting gig or two and reschedule stuff. And yeah, that's me.

Megan Gill: Okay, this is fun because not only are you an actor, someone who uses their physical body for their work, right, but you're also a photographer of a lot of actors and artists and creatives where you're capturing the physicality and the physical bodies of these other actors. So you're kind of really living in this world of dealing with not only maybe your own physical body, but then also others and kind of all of the things that come up when you're shooting people and all of the body stuff around that. So I'm really excited to talk to you about that because I feel you're getting multiple perspectives here.

I know we've briefly spoken and we all have a body image story, right. But with your own relationship to your own physical body, but then also getting to be behind the camera and seeing your clients. I'm curious if there's anything that you want to start with as far as your relationship to your own body or things that really come up in a lot of sessions for you that you see just off the top of your head that you want to talk about or bring to light?

Beth Hawkes: Yeah. I mean, it feels two separate things in a way. I can really empathize with my clients when they come to me, because I would say 90% of clients come to me and when they're shooting, they'll be like, “Okay, I'm insecure about this,” or “I prefer this side of my face,” or “Oh, okay, keep an eye on my hair. It tends to do this weird thing.” And I empathize with them, but I also am like I never would've noticed or cared about that. And I'll look through the photos and, to me, each side looks the same – of the face – or the pooch that they're worried about in their stomach or something. It's not at all what they think it is in their head. And it looks great and they look amazing. I am constantly like I wish my clients could see themselves the way that I see them, which is just slightly perfectly imperfect. There could be a photo where they look amazing and the focus is perfect and their hair is perfect, but they don't like the way that their leg looks, and so they won't post or choose that photo. And that's such a shame to me because I don't think people – I mean, we all know that no one cares about you as much as you do. No one's really thinking about you as much as you're thinking about yourself. And I'm faced with it constantly in photography.

Especially when I'm editing and choosing photos, I'll be culling, and if a client has mentioned, “I really don't like the way that my chin does this,” I will eliminate some of those photos just knowing that they don't like it. And even if it's a photo that I I'm like they're not gonna want to see this. I don't want them to open their session gallery and be like, “Ugh, I hate the way that my –,” you know, even if the photo looks fantastic, I don't want them to be disappointed by the way that they look. So I do take that into account when I'm editing.

Yeah, and I also will, I have a few go-to poses that kind of help hide certain insecurities and parts of the body if they want, or that will emphasize parts of the body that they want to emphasize, things that. And it's just interesting because, you know, it's really vulnerable to have your photo taken. And I get it too.

As far as my personal journey goes, you know, I've always felt generally happy with my body, and there were times where I've gained weight or lost weight. I haven't really let it affect me too much. I mean, you know, it's tough when your clothes start to fit differently, but I'm usually just like, “Ugh, but my clothes. I don’t want to have to get new ones.” But I definitely get it because if you’re like, “Oh, take a photo of me out and about,” and then I'm like, “Oh, my god, that angle is not flattering on me personally.” And then my friends will do exactly what I do as a photographer, which is say, “What? Really? I never would've noticed. You look great.”

So yeah, it's a constant battle with, you know, wanting to help people accept themselves for how they are, and also honoring their feelings about their own body because they're paying me to capture them, and so, I have a job to do at the end of the day.

Megan Gill: Yeah, it's not necessarily your weight to carry to show up in therapist mode. Like you said, that's not your job.

Beth Hawkes: Yeah.

Megan Gill: But it is really beautiful how nuanced your take on capturing your clients is, and I've experienced it myself in working with you. Just how encouraging and empowering you are behind the camera, I think, hopefully allows your clients to show up and maybe not necessarily accept those flaws about themselves or the parts of themselves that they're insecure about, but maybe start to not put so much weight on them. And granted, I feel it does take hearing that time and time again. “I don't even see that. I don't even see that.” And then once you understand the concept of the fact that we are so hyperfocused on the way that our own body looks that, “Oh, my photographer isn't seeing me through the same lens that I'm seeing me?” And, “Oh, my friends aren't seeing me through that same lens either?” I think it's really difficult to come to the place of acknowledging that and being able to understand that sometimes our view of our own bodies and of our own selves is pot