I have been a professional photographer for fifteen years now. I absolutely love the work I do. And it can be ridiculously frustrating to work in an industry that frequently promotes men over women on multiple fronts, including job opportunities and sometimes just through every day language, tone and nuance. Even when you excel in your field, you may be dismissed repeatedly in ways that are subtle yet still pervasive. Nearly every working female photographer I know has deal

The Beautiful Together Gallery Exhibit at the Union Square Ballroom in New York City, generously hosted by Adorama, showcased 100+ pieces printed and produced by Nations Photo Lab. All proceeds from this event AND from this online auction (live until midnight of Aug 25th: biddingowl.com/beautifultogether) go directly towards Beautiful Together's orphan care work. Such an incredible turnout with much heartfelt support towards improving the lives of children who wait for famili

August 17th from 6-9pm - Union Square Ballroom, New York City We're very excited to invite you to join Nikon Ambassador Tamara Lackey on Thursday, August 17th from 6-9pm for a one night only exclusive gallery event at the Union Square Ballroom in New York City supporting the incredible work of Beautiful Together. See imagery from some of the life-changing recent projects, hear from Tamara about the inspiring work still to be done - and enjoy generous raffle prizes (list const

What an honor! All this month, Nikon is featuring an image of mine as the cover photo for the main Nikon Facebook Page. You can check it out here. The Story Behind the Image Back in 2010, I began teaching CreativeLive classes. It was the first year they launched courses, and mine was one of the first multi-day live programs. At the time, participants were hand-picked from a long list, and we had to pick from quite a number of video submissions. O ne of the photographers we ch

Every year in May, we take a day to honor our mothers. And, if we are mothers ourselves, we enjoy the singular attention from our children. But, there are millions of children around the world who need a mother's love. You can spread that special kind of love to orphaned children by donating to Beautiful Together today. How You Can Spread the Love Choose one or more of the projects below to make an immediate difference in a child's life. One hundred percent of all donations

Aerial Photography with Travis Jack and Tamara Lackey on the reDefine Show on AdoramaTV Travis Jack left law enforcement to become a photographer who specializes in aerial photography. In this two-part series of the reDefine Show on AdoramaTV, In the first episode, I sit down with him to talk all about drones and how he got interested in this specific type of visual storytelling. In Part 2, I continue the conversation and we talk about all things you would want to know to ge

AdoramaTV reDefine Show New Episodes with Rocco Ancora, Jen Rozenbaum, & Mike Colón Wedding Photography with Rocco Ancora. Rocco Ancora shared some fantastic insight on how to stand out by creating fabulous prints, both in print-making and in print creation. Boudoir Photography with Jen Rozenbaum. NY-Based Boudoir Photographer Jen Rozenbaum shares how she takes photography to another level to not only improve the quality of her work but also to improve lives. Celebrity Weddin

Studio Makeover, Before and After, with Nations Photo Lab Studio Makeover: I strongly believe in the power of printing your images to showcase your art - and what matters to you the most. When we moved to our brand new studio in Chapel Hill, it was an opportunity to step back and look at how we could display our work and really take advantage of all of the elements of our new space, as well as showcase a variety of the sizes and products we offer. So we started with a very em

Tamara Lackey's reDefine Episodes with Ashley & Graham Scobey, Jeff Rojas, and Kenna Klosterman Here’s another round of talented creative photographers as part of the reDefine Show, produced in conjunction with Adorama, and featured on AdoramaTV. Work-Life Balance with Ashley and Graham Scobey In this episode, Tamara Lackey interviews Ashley and Graham Scobey as they share how they managed to get their wedding photography business off the ground while managing their work-li

Our Beautiful Together Safe Showers for Homeless Youth Project is FULLY FUNDED! We are thrilled to announce that our latest Beautiful Together project, Safe Showers For Homeless Youth, focused on improving the quality of life for impoverished youth in America – specifically, homeless youth who have recently cycled out of foster care and are struggling to find a home, a job, and a community - is now fully funded ! We are thrilled to be partnering with RunningWorks, as they e

New reDefine Show Episodes from Kenny Kim and Brooke Shaden with Tamara Lackey Here's another two truly inspirational episodes of the reDefine Show, produced in conjunction with Adorama and featured on AdoramaTV. Destination Wedding and Travel Photography with Kenny Kim In this episode, I chat with world-renowned wedding photographer Kenny Kim, as he shares his gorgeous destination photography, a great lesson about overcoming crippling fear, and an absolutely fantastic tip f

Love, Fear & A Chance Encounter at Duke Children's Hospital I'd been holding my breath for the last five hours, struggling through what would end up being my daughter's 9-hour surgery at Duke Children's Hospital, when she sat down. Her name was Sue, and she asked if the seat next to me was taken. We were in the waiting room. I was positioned so that I could stare at the wall that separated me, in the waiting room, from the hallway that led to the operating room where my daugh

New reDefine Show episodes with Luke and David Edmonson & Andrew Funderburg I have so many exciting new episodes of the reDefine show to share with you. While I was at WPPI this year, I was able to sit down and record with a lot of very talented photographers and innovators since we were all in the same space. It made things hectic schedule-wise, but it was so worth it. And, as always, a big thank you to Adorama for all of your support! Luke and David Edmonson To start with,

Effective Immediately - 50% of Lush Albums proceeds now to go directly to Beautiful Together! A very exciting shift for Lush Albums and Beautiful Together! As many of you know, we started our Beautiful Together non-profit to work to improve the quality of life for children waiting for families and those living in extreme poverty. One steady source of funds to support our projects have come from the sale of Lush Albums, our gorgeous fine art photo albums that have given 10% ba

Seven Days, Around the World Photos A week ago, I was nominated on Facebook to post a photo of the natural world for the next 7 days, which struck me as taking a mini Around the World photos trip for a week. My gut response to this was twofold: 1. I love photos of the natural world, I love to take them and I am inspired when I see them. 2. Ummm, that seems like a whole lot of extra work just now when we have so much going on in the studio (We are moving! Lots more to come on

An update on Beautiful Together & the Build An Orphan Feeding Kitchen Project In February, my husband, Steve, and I flew from Dubaito Ethiopia. Almost immediately upon landing in Africa, we learned of the urgent need for a kitchen in the new feeding center in Korah that Beautiful Together helps to support through our partner organization, Life To Live for Korah, a grassroots feeding program in the village. More specifics from our project page here: “Korah is one of the poores

reDefine Episodes with Conceptual Artists Amanda Diaz & Sara Lando These next two reDefine Show episodes both feature different kinds of Conceptual Photography. The first with Amanda Diaz focuses on portrait photography, and the second with Sara Lando focuses on her more mixed-media approach. So what is Conceptual Art? I found this description helpful to explain the overall thinking behind the style: "A concept is an idea or thought, so the term conceptual art means literal

WPPI 2016 in Las Vegas & $500 Giveaway from Adorama This is my 12th WPPI. What?! Crazy. WPPI feels like a summer camp for photographers, coming back to the MGM in Las Vegas for this week of festivities. Even though I can technically only be there for five days, I definitely have more than a week's worth of events, speaking engagements, interviews, demos and more planned - so I'm just calling it a week. This post lists out the events that I'm a part of this week AND includes

Believe in fate. But lean forward, so fate can see you. ~ Quentin Crisp We left Ethiopia looking somewhat like these people, but we actually took this shot when we first arrived there. It was a sloppy, fun marker of just how excited we felt to be leaving customs as we headed straight to see our little boy again. We didn't take a photo when we were leaving Ethiopia because we were far too emotional, exhausted and bedraggled to even think of it. We left Africa feeling dee

Digital Photo Pro Magazine - Spotlight on Beautiful Together Recently, I was honored to be featured in the January-February 2016 issue of Digital Photo Pro Magazine, one of my favorite photography magazines that I pick up all the time when I'm at Barnes & Noble. (Like, all the time. I seriously just need to subscribe to it at this point). A big thank you to Tracey Clark who really wrote a beautiful piece after interviewing me. The focus of the article is on photography, y