Speaker 1: Welcome back to She Pivots. I'm Rochelle Steele.
Speaker 2: Welcome to She Pivots, the podcast where we talk with
Speaker 2: women who dared to pivot out of one career and
Speaker 2: into something new and explore how their personal lives impacted
Speaker 2: these decisions. I'm your host Emily Tish Sussman. Today I'm
Speaker 2: excited to have Rochelle Steele on the show to talk
Speaker 2: about her beautiful yet often heavy story. Now a renowned
Speaker 2: portrait photographer, Rochelle's venture into this art form was full
Speaker 2: of twists and turns. From the time she was a
Speaker 2: young girl, Rochelle's life was filled with tumultuous experiences. She
Speaker 2: grew up as a Jehovah's witness, what she describes as
Speaker 2: a cult surrounded by abuse. It wasn't long before her
Speaker 2: father was murdered and she found herself a member of
Speaker 2: a motorcycle gang. Just a young girl from northern California.
Speaker 2: Rochelle looked around and took the advice of an older
Speaker 2: woman in the gang to get out, and she did.
Speaker 2: She joined the Navy and put her life on a
Speaker 2: new trajectory. Rochelle's next pivot wouldn't come until several years later,
Speaker 2: when she was living in Mississippi with her two daughters,
Speaker 2: Hurricane Katrina hit and she and her daughters barely survived.
Speaker 2: Still serving in the Navy, she picked up a camera
Speaker 2: and started documenting the devastation of the hurricane. Little did
Speaker 2: she know that this introduction to photography would result in
Speaker 2: photographic PTSD that would prevent her from picking up a
Speaker 2: camera again for many years. Eventually, she went all in
Speaker 2: more about this in the episode and got both her
Speaker 2: bachelor's and her master's in photography, quickly making a name
Speaker 2: for herself and winning the award International Portrait Photographer of
Speaker 2: the Year several times over. Rochelle exudes a calm, beautiful
Speaker 2: energy that was palpable even through a screen. I want
Speaker 2: to thank her for opening up so much and allowing
Speaker 2: us to share her incredible story.
Speaker 3: Hope you enjoy.
Speaker 1: My name is Rochelle Steele. I'm a master photographer and professor.
Speaker 3: Can you just set the scene for us a little bit.
Speaker 3: Where did you grow up? What was your family like?
Speaker 1: I grew up in northern California. I say Shasta County
Speaker 1: because we moved so much, but the city of the
Speaker 1: area is called Reading. Really really beautiful landscape, a little
Speaker 1: bit of a harsher community, a lot of construction workers,
Speaker 1: substance abuse smith. You know, once you kind of get
Speaker 1: the outlying areas in the mountains, you kind of run
Speaker 1: into these things. I have a brother and sister, and
Speaker 1: my mother and father had substance abuse issues, which compounded
Speaker 1: into domestic violence, a lot of abuse in the household.
Speaker 1: I'm in place, beatings, hunger, you know, all this crazy stuff.
Speaker 1: So aside from everything that we were dealing with, me
Speaker 1: and my siblings were dealing with, we were also kind
Speaker 1: of born into this religious cult. So no birthdays, no holidays,
Speaker 1: no friends outside of a cult. It was very ostracizing.
Speaker 1: Aside from everything else, you know, not only was I
Speaker 1: having to go to school in essentially Long John's and
Speaker 1: no food. Ever, I also wasn't allowed to have friends
Speaker 1: outside of this religious cult, and in that religion particularly too.
Speaker 1: Not only do they have they decided to withhold some
Speaker 1: of the main factors of what being a child is,
Speaker 1: they also encourage the beatings, They encourage child abuse, and
Speaker 1: then now it's coming to light a lot of pedophilia,
Speaker 1: which of course we know about that growing up in it.
Speaker 1: A lot of people don't but just this real nasty
Speaker 1: place where nasty people get together and decide to live
Speaker 1: in a bizarre way, and it has lifetime effects on
Speaker 1: the children, unfortunately, that are raised in that environment.
Speaker 3: Rachelle found refuge in school, a safe place where she
Speaker 3: knew what to expect and what was expected of her.
Speaker 1: But that became my escape with school. I loved it
Speaker 1: so much. I would literally cry when summer came because
Speaker 1: I was really, really, really drawn to my teachers. They
Speaker 1: became my heroes, or I mean early on, even my
Speaker 1: first my first teacher that I can remember, my kindergarten teacher.
Speaker 1: She was my hero. And now in hindsight, looking back
Speaker 1: as an adult, I know they knew. They had to
Speaker 1: have known, because she made my world with her so
Speaker 1: beautiful and so special. And I was also a gifted
Speaker 1: child intellectually. I mean I used to say, oh, I
Speaker 1: got always got straight ease, but I always that was
Speaker 1: that was my thing. I had the quickest child to
Speaker 1: be finished one hundred percent. Always always asking to be
Speaker 1: My teachers, always asked me if I could be their helper,
Speaker 1: you know, on filled when I wasn't allowed to go
Speaker 1: because of this bizarre religion. Always always kept behind.
Speaker 3: On top of it all, her dad had developed a
Speaker 3: serious drug addiction.
Speaker 1: My dad's addiction eventually spiraled out of control. He became
Speaker 1: a full blown junkie, which resulted in a lot of
Speaker 1: my early childhood being in what we would refer to
Speaker 1: as a crackhead hotel. Just three little kids bouncing on
Speaker 1: beds and he's totally passed out coming down. So honestly,
Speaker 1: those weren't the worst times for me. It was like,
Speaker 1: woh cool, you know now we can bounce on beds.
Speaker 1: Now we can be goofy kids and stuff. Eventually, his
Speaker 1: lifestyle led to him being murdered, and that was also
Speaker 1: a big shift for us because now my mom, who
Speaker 1: I had seen, you know, get her butt kicked by him.
Speaker 1: My whole life, we were in and out of women
Speaker 1: what we call women's Refuge, but it's basically shelters for
Speaker 1: battered women and children. Now all of a sudden, he's gone.
Speaker 1: Now we really lee have nothing, and we made our
Speaker 1: final move. She just moved incessantly, because when you're a
Speaker 1: mom and you have nothing, you're kind of almost lease
Speaker 1: hopping or staying with people that will allow you, you know,
Speaker 1: three kids and stuff. I never had my own room
Speaker 1: or anything. So it was always us being crammed in
Speaker 1: these spaces that maybe weren't our space actually hardly.
Speaker 3: Ever, hopping around just to find housing exposed Rochelle to
Speaker 3: people and situations that were dangerous. When she was ten,
Speaker 3: she found her way into her first motorcycle gang, what
Speaker 3: she called her bros or buddies.
Speaker 1: So we moved into another area and I found my
Speaker 1: first group of buddies, my first bros. I guess you
Speaker 1: could say we've been in this area. I met these buddies.
Speaker 1: One of their moms was a meth dealer for a
Speaker 1: motorcycle gang up there, big prominent gang that's up there.
Speaker 1: That was my first introduction. And for me, that wasn't weird.
Speaker 1: That wasn't some big shocking environment where I was this
Speaker 1: scared little girl entering. I'd always been around meth. I'd
Speaker 1: always been around violence and extreme things, so it wasn't
Speaker 1: really extreme for me, But it was my transition myself
Speaker 1: putting myself in that environment, and his mom would give
Speaker 1: us meth to clean her house this and that. I
Speaker 1: was eleven years old when that kind of started for me.
Speaker 1: By the time I was thirteen, I was pretty much
Speaker 1: doing anything. I was such a little wild girl, but
Speaker 1: I was also so good. I've always hated the bad guy.
Speaker 1: I guess you could say so here. I was just
Speaker 1: this wild young lady, but still straight a's at school,
Speaker 1: still trying to be this perfect, little studious girl. I
Speaker 1: started kind of doing whatever I wanted. When I was thirteen.
Speaker 1: There was really no parental I don't know what my
Speaker 1: mom was doing. And another thing is it's hard when
Speaker 1: I think back, a lot of the memories aren't there,
Speaker 1: which I've found recently that's really really common that children
Speaker 1: that go through stuff like that, there's just kind of
Speaker 1: holes in the story for them.
Speaker 3: Rochelle continued to find community in the only place she
Speaker 3: knew best, with the bros from her motorcycle gang.
Speaker 1: When I was fifteen is when I moved out of
Speaker 1: my mom's house and I'd been kind of in this
Speaker 1: environment with these bikers and all this stuff. That's when
Speaker 1: I quote unquote got an old man, which in that
Speaker 1: kind of community, that's kind of like the big goal,
Speaker 1: right is to get an old man. You see these
Speaker 1: fellons walking around, all this lady's love, outlaws, all this stuff.
Speaker 1: You're kind of bred into this mentality Okay, I'm going
Speaker 1: to be the perfect old lady and another escape. You know,
Speaker 1: I thought, okay, now I fit.
Speaker 3: At the time, Rochelle was just fifteen and he was
Speaker 3: in his twenties, shocking to hear from the outside looking in,
Speaker 3: But for Rochelle it was normal.
Speaker 1: Age gaps can get even more extreme in those social situation.
Speaker 1: I didn't see that there was a problem at all
Speaker 1: with it whatsoever. That was a ridiculous relationship looking back
Speaker 1: at it now, what other people would gasp at, Oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, the abuse is That's that was unflinching for me.
Speaker 1: That didn't phase me at all whatsoever. I jokingly, very
Speaker 1: glibly say, you know, I learned how to take a
Speaker 1: hit when I was a little girl, so anything that
Speaker 1: I would go through was just no big whoop, just
Speaker 1: to put it casually. Nothing that I observed and I
Speaker 1: was oftentime in the presence of felonies being done or whatever,
Speaker 1: just by being the old lady present, none of that
Speaker 1: even fased me at all whatsoever. And the big turning
Speaker 1: point for me was I was at this club party,
Speaker 1: this biker gang, their club party, and one of the
Speaker 1: club members had devised a situation where they were confronting
Speaker 1: my boyfriend that he had knocked over a Harley, which
Speaker 1: is like a huge, huge, huge issue, And what they
Speaker 1: wanted was they wanted me for the payment to be
Speaker 1: given to the club, which I would have then become
Speaker 1: property of. And in that moment, my whole entire life
Speaker 1: could have changed, like for the rest of my life.
Speaker 1: And thank goodness, in that moment he was kind of
Speaker 1: a strong enough dude to hold his own and it
Speaker 1: kind of like squashed out very quickly. But that was
Speaker 1: when my mind realized, no, no, no, no, no, no
Speaker 1: no no. Keep in mind, is still a high school
Speaker 1: student at this time. I ended up graduating early because
Speaker 1: I was always straight, as I'd never gone anything less
Speaker 1: than an A mostly A plus, top of my class
Speaker 1: with everything, but still this partying, wild young lady. My
Speaker 1: boyfriend would pick me up on his Harley, all this
Speaker 1: stuff going on, and I was I graduated early, and
Speaker 1: I was riding in the car with this what we
Speaker 1: would call a biker mama woman named Hershey, and it
Speaker 1: was one of the very few times wherever alone and
Speaker 1: she said, you're so amazing, Rachelle, like, don't do it,
Speaker 1: don't do it, get out, do not go down the path.
Speaker 1: I went down and it was like a light went
Speaker 1: off in my head and I realized, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to do it.
Speaker 3: She made up her mind and started looking for opportunities
Speaker 3: to get out. As bait would have it, she saw
Speaker 3: a commercial for the Navy on TV and saw her opening.
Speaker 1: And it was this quintessential warship crashing through the waves
Speaker 1: of the ocean. I don't know what the slogan is now,
Speaker 1: but at that time it was let the journey begin.
Speaker 1: They said, you want to leave this weekend? Yeah, and
Speaker 1: that was it. I went and had my braid cut off.
Speaker 1: That was it. I was gone. It was amazing. I
Speaker 1: had on a pair of sandal I had no clothes
Speaker 1: at that time. Of course, I had on a tightie
Speaker 1: dress with no bra and panties and a pair of sandals.
Speaker 1: I had didn't even have suitcase to bring with me. Nothing.
Speaker 1: And that was it. I changed my life.
Speaker 3: When we come back, Rochelle talks through what it was
Speaker 3: like being one of the few women in the Navy,
Speaker 3: and later how she not only swam through Hurricane Katrina
Speaker 3: to save herself and her six month old and eighteen
Speaker 3: month old daughters, but how the storm then inspired a pivot.
Speaker 1: I became an electronics technician in the Navy, and then
Speaker 1: my first duty station was actually with Lachite Martin at
Speaker 1: a top secret facility in New Jersey that they work
Speaker 1: with many different navies and it's kind of an American
Speaker 1: Navy run top secret facility. And I got there and
Speaker 1: I thrived in that environment, and they were like, oh boy,
Speaker 1: here comes this young girl. You know, they weren't too
Speaker 1: happy to see me. But I understood what I had
Speaker 1: to do. But I kind of already understood because of
Speaker 1: the skill set I developed as a very little girl
Speaker 1: on how to act, how they expected me to act,
Speaker 1: how to please, how to please I've always understood because
Speaker 1: when you're little in an abusive environment, you're always reading
Speaker 1: the room and understanding how to be how to not
Speaker 1: make people mad, or understanding when they are mad and
Speaker 1: how to act then or whatever. It's this like crazy
Speaker 1: little intuitive skill set that you have that has served
Speaker 1: me time and time again, because you know, you talk
Speaker 1: about that gut feeling, well, you have a gut feeling,
Speaker 1: all right. It's no easy environment for a woman to
Speaker 1: be in the military. It's really not. You have to
Speaker 1: understand the environment.
Speaker 3: After a few years in New Jersey, a marriage, the
Speaker 3: birth of her two daughters, and a divorce, Rochelle had
Speaker 3: a permanent change of station to Mississippi. Then Hurricane Katrina hit.
Speaker 1: I was listening to Fleetwood Mac with my baby the
Speaker 1: night before and my best friend house, thinking, haha, we
Speaker 1: don't have to go anywhere, okay, Like no one realized
Speaker 1: it was going to be that bad. I was doing
Speaker 1: my two year shore duty and I was stationed in
Speaker 1: pas Googula, Mississippi. I had a six month old and
Speaker 1: a year and six months old, and me and my
Speaker 1: best friend, who were still best friends to this day.
Speaker 1: There had been so many hurricanes up to that point.
Speaker 1: We had decided, dude, we're not getting in this evacuation
Speaker 1: line again. Plus we had no gas and we had
Speaker 1: no money, and you need all of those things to evacuate.
Speaker 1: So we had kind of secured our Everyone else had
Speaker 1: left and we'd kind of secured our command, and I
Speaker 1: took the babies and I went to her house and
Speaker 1: people are calling us, get out, get out, get out.
Speaker 1: We're like, dude, we're not going anywhere. Bye, enjoy your
Speaker 1: evacuation line. Because we didn't know we're California girls, and
Speaker 1: the hurricane came and we almost lost our lives in it.
Speaker 1: We swim through it with our babies.
Speaker 4: It is just just mind boggling to watch it's happening.
Speaker 4: There are now helicopters going overhead. Clearly they're trying to
Speaker 4: assess the situation, but darkness is approaching here. I don't
Speaker 4: know how much they'll be able to do after darkness.
Speaker 1: I need someone out here, ma'am.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna die.
Speaker 3: Instead, it was in the attic.
Speaker 1: Ma'am, And I'm a draw in the attic, and he
Speaker 1: started coming to zone.
Speaker 3: After surviving the hurricane and saving her daughters, Rachelle had
Speaker 3: to get back to work.
Speaker 1: A lot of people don't understand the military presence during
Speaker 1: Hurricane Katrina, because there were some of us that were
Speaker 1: kind of already there and that was our job. The
Speaker 1: mission shifted right then. I'm just had the epiphany, like, dude,
Speaker 1: no one's photographing this. There was no photographer's mates there,
Speaker 1: and I'd asked permission and was volunteld anyways, and I
Speaker 1: went and I started documenting with my camera and another
Speaker 1: friend's camera, and off we went. But the thing is,
Speaker 1: I wasn't a train photographer and we were going into
Speaker 1: areas like an area called Waveland where they had been
Speaker 1: overtaken with a fifty foot storm search. And as we're
Speaker 1: working our way in, there's all these cars in the
Speaker 1: road with bodies of people that were trying to get
Speaker 1: out too late. Then whatever homes were there, they're having
Speaker 1: to go find doing body recoveries. So that was kind
Speaker 1: of what started it me with the CBS doing that,
Speaker 1: and I was photographing the body recoveries, and then the
Speaker 1: deep sea divers came and their job the ones I
Speaker 1: was with was And a lot of people don't realize this.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of fishing families on the Mississippi Gulf coast.
Speaker 1: When a hurricane comes, boats have to go out to
Speaker 1: see while a lot of these families unfortunately one of
Speaker 1: the inlets and of the waterways also, no one expected
Speaker 1: that a hurricane, but no one had dealt with anything
Speaker 1: like that. There's no one to blame. No one knew
Speaker 1: what that, no one understood what was going on. So
Speaker 1: the deep sea divers were making their way up clearing
Speaker 1: the waterways of trees, cars, whatever, but they were also
Speaker 1: removing these families and the bodies had already been in
Speaker 1: the water at this point a week, two weeks. It
Speaker 1: was a process, and I was also with them documenting
Speaker 1: that too, So I did that for about I don't know,
Speaker 1: six weeks something like that, and then from there I
Speaker 1: never picked it up again until about twenty ten, and
Speaker 1: that's when I decided to kind of shift. That was
Speaker 1: my next huge pivot. How many years did you stay
Speaker 1: in the navy after? Like, what did you do in
Speaker 1: those years after the hurricane? I was in for let's see,
Speaker 1: two more years, and then I essentially just had to
Speaker 1: get out. The plan was kind of disrupted. My girl's
Speaker 1: biological father was had essentially disappeared for their life. He
Speaker 1: went disappeared when they were one and two. And I
Speaker 1: always say, you know, you can't have two lovers. You
Speaker 1: can't be a good mom and a good sailor at
Speaker 1: the same time. I couldn't. And I have a lot
Speaker 1: of girlfriends that have done full careers and I do
Speaker 1: not want to take that away from them, But a
Speaker 1: sailor belongs at sea. You can't be at sea and
Speaker 1: be a good mom at the same time. You just can't.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's where you have those key other family
Speaker 1: members at step in and they make it seameless for
Speaker 1: the babies and you can like maintain your bond and stuff.
Speaker 1: But that wasn't what my situation was. And so yeah,
Speaker 1: I got out and my nine year mark. And what
Speaker 1: started happening, though, was my hands started really hurting. They
Speaker 1: actually were starting to hurt pretty bad in the Navy,
Speaker 1: because I mean, it's arduous work being the military. That's no,
Speaker 1: you're no pencil pusher. So my hands kind of had
Speaker 1: been aching for some years. But when I got out
Speaker 1: and I started working this we'll call it a civilian job.
Speaker 1: I was climbing towers all the time, I was pulling cable.
Speaker 1: I was just even more the manual. It just got
Speaker 1: ramped up a lot, and I was like, wow, dude,
Speaker 1: my hands are hurting a lot. Now this is getting
Speaker 1: to be a thing. My hands started deteriorating quickly. I
Speaker 1: found out I had this rare disease in both hands,
Speaker 1: and I actually had to step away from my job.
Speaker 1: I had two big surgeries. I was almost for almost
Speaker 1: about a year and a half in a full arm cast,
Speaker 1: and I was devastated. I had a stunning career in electronics, obviously,
Speaker 1: always at the top of the game, and that's where
Speaker 1: my pivot happened. Actually, because again I'm facing a thing,
Speaker 1: no so forth, no way to provide for my family.
Speaker 1: I'd always put my value as this hardcore worker that
Speaker 1: could just hold her own, could take anything, and I thought,
Speaker 1: my body is not the only thing that I have
Speaker 1: to offer.
Speaker 3: Finally, after several years and a harrowing experience losing the
Speaker 3: use of her arms and hands, decided to pick up
Speaker 3: the camera again. But picking up the camera and looking
Speaker 3: through the lens, all she could see were the horrific
Speaker 3: scenes that had captured her from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Speaker 1: I understood that I had PTSD at that time, but
Speaker 1: I did not understand that a lot of it was photographic.
Speaker 1: And when I started really shooting, something was happening, happening physiologically,
Speaker 1: the anxiety, the full blown sweats, it was excruciating. I
Speaker 1: hated it. I hated it so much. And then after
Speaker 1: I did the shoe where it was like almost like
Speaker 1: canceling shots, like I wouldn't let anyone hire me all
Speaker 1: this stuff. I still have a hard time letting people
Speaker 1: hire me. But I realized I was completely dysregulated. It
Speaker 1: was an excruciating process eventually made friends in the our community.
Speaker 1: Let us show you how to show. Please start showing
Speaker 1: you work, and they kind of took me under the
Speaker 1: wings and friends, bang, please end you This contest, this
Speaker 1: international contest is like country contest, right. I took like
Speaker 1: second place. My PTSD was so bad I could not
Speaker 1: attend my own opening the galleries, calling your begging, come
Speaker 1: on please, I said, I can't do it, and I
Speaker 1: realized one I'm Barry kicked this career on because I
Speaker 1: kind of knew this is what I was supposed to do.
Speaker 1: It was bomb, but I also knew I wouldn't be
Speaker 1: able to do it if I did not completely confront
Speaker 1: and overcome my photographic PTSD. There was no way I
Speaker 1: would be frozen. There's no way that I could step
Speaker 1: into that arena because the photographic field, the people in
Speaker 1: that arena, this isn't like kindergarten land. This is like
Speaker 1: these are tough cookies. And I'm trying to step in
Speaker 1: as an outsider, as a military woman, and ate up
Speaker 1: with PTSD. I literally googled hardiest photography program in the world,
Speaker 1: and Academy of Art University came up in San Francisco.
Speaker 1: I thought well, here we go. I want to go
Speaker 1: be put through the meat grinder. I want to know
Speaker 1: for a fact how to be the best version of this,
Speaker 1: like I need to get over it. And I did.
Speaker 1: That's what happened. That's how I got That's when it
Speaker 1: really began.
Speaker 3: Okay, so you moved first of all, how did you
Speaker 3: apply to school? Did you move for kids with you?
Speaker 3: And how did you finance it?
Speaker 1: At this point, Well, it happened rather quickly because I
Speaker 1: was actually in my second marriage, which was an abusive marriage,
Speaker 1: and I realized you can't climb Mount Everest with a
Speaker 1: camel on your back, and I'd been with him for
Speaker 1: many years and realized, well, nothing's going to happen as
Speaker 1: long as the son of a bitch has my life
Speaker 1: in a stranglehold. So basically, within one month, we got
Speaker 1: rid of him, got enrolled at school, moved down to Sacramento,
Speaker 1: next door neighbors with my big brother, and started at
Speaker 1: the university. Like, very very quickly. It all happened. Once
Speaker 1: I made that decision, it was on and it was
Speaker 1: full full, full speed. And the cool thing about being
Speaker 1: a veteran and not a lot of people take advantage
Speaker 1: of all the benefits is you do have your schooling
Speaker 1: paid for afterwards, to what extent depends on details about
Speaker 1: your service and your physical disabilities afterwards. But yeah, the
Speaker 1: Navy paid for my bachelor's and then I went on
Speaker 1: to get my masters. It's tricky, but if you can
Speaker 1: get in those things, it's covered. Plus you get your
Speaker 1: as you know, you get your housing paid for and
Speaker 1: all that good stuff. And I was this was in
Speaker 1: San Francisco. Has that the highest housing in the country.
Speaker 1: So I was like cool, Yeah, so is that mostly
Speaker 1: what you lived off of, like the housing supplement? Like
Speaker 1: were you working at the same time? I mean, how
Speaker 1: old were your girls? Oh jeez when I started maybe
Speaker 1: they were early early teens maybe at that point or
Speaker 1: just coming into that tween period. And yeah, that's what
Speaker 1: we lived off of. And I commuted back and forth
Speaker 1: from San Francisco to Sacramento. I would hop on the
Speaker 1: four am bus. I would return home at the nine
Speaker 1: pm bus, getting home ten to eleven pm. Sometimes do
Speaker 1: it all again the next day, every day, shooting, traveling,
Speaker 1: shooting so early on. My daughters and I had to
Speaker 1: form this relationship where I had to kind of sacrifice
Speaker 1: being there. I had to go do the schooling. I
Speaker 1: had to, first of all, in order to raise them,
Speaker 1: because that's what I used to raise them. But also
Speaker 1: I couldn't improve our station at all whatsoever if I
Speaker 1: didn't do that. There was literally no one. So my
Speaker 1: house is a little different now. I mean they're nineteen
Speaker 1: and twenty, but even then, they've always been so responsible.
Speaker 1: They'll clean the house on their own, they'll cook food
Speaker 1: on their own. Like it's their level of responsibility and
Speaker 1: understanding of things. It's so much more advanced and so
Speaker 1: much more mature, just because you know, at the ages
Speaker 1: of four and five they were having two stand on
Speaker 1: chairs and washed dishes and carry the laundry basket together
Speaker 1: because my arm wasn't a full arm cast for almost
Speaker 1: two years. So they've had a little bit of a
Speaker 1: different life that I have always always, always been racked
Speaker 1: with guilt over, to be quite honest, But I'm also
Speaker 1: so grateful because they understand things so beautifully. They're so responsible,
Speaker 1: so they've had such a different insight. But that was
Speaker 1: our journey. This is honestly, with single moms and stuff.
Speaker 1: This is not uncommon. It's unfortunate, but you know, hey,
Speaker 1: we made it through it. The girls are rad, beautiful, responsible, hardworking.
Speaker 3: Did you start photographing and selling while you were in school?
Speaker 3: You had this one very successful contest before you even started.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was another thing where I felt like I
Speaker 1: was cheating the system because then I didn't have to
Speaker 1: kind of come up with concepts. Every homework assignment I
Speaker 1: treated as if I was shooting it for a curator.
Speaker 1: So right away, through and through the whole time I
Speaker 1: was selling, I was selling my work. I was essentially
Speaker 1: selling my homework to people, and I was essentially exhibiting
Speaker 1: my homework like internationally and stuff. It was like I
Speaker 1: felt like I was getting one over on everybody because
Speaker 1: they were kind of telling me, prompting me with ideas
Speaker 1: and stuff. And it was really really really stimulating as
Speaker 1: far as like your visual visualization. And it was while
Speaker 1: I was a student that I was already getting published
Speaker 1: with Bogue.
Speaker 3: Wow and your master's work. I imagine you did come up
Speaker 3: with this concept that you focused on your father's sharkskin boots.
Speaker 3: Why did you decide to make that the focal point
Speaker 3: of your studies.
Speaker 1: Something happened when I before I started the master's program. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: about a month prior I had to have a surgery,
Speaker 1: and I thought, oh, man, it's so close to school,
Speaker 1: Like I knew what was ry to start. Once the
Speaker 1: school started, the surgery was unsuccessful. One week before the
Speaker 1: Master's program started, I had to have an identical surgery again. Man,
Speaker 1: it was hard physically, but emotionally, dude, I broke down.
Speaker 1: I broke down, and I was actually in a relationship
Speaker 1: that I really really really really really wanted at that time,
Speaker 1: and I lost that relationship. That person just walked right
Speaker 1: away from me because I had no emotional coping skills
Speaker 1: at all whatsoever. And I showed a sight of myself
Speaker 1: that was like what you just cringe at? I think back,
Speaker 1: and I just cringe at myself. And I realized, and
Speaker 1: he said something like, hey, we all have our demons,
Speaker 1: and I was like, whoa, Yeah, I do have demons.
Speaker 1: I have so many demons that I've concealed. Not that
Speaker 1: I go around lying about who I am at I've
Speaker 1: had friends for ten years that had no idea about
Speaker 1: anything about my childhood, my father. I never bring it up.
Speaker 1: So I realized that while I was operating with this
Speaker 1: cloak of shame over me, that I was always trying
Speaker 1: to be so perfect so no one could see it,
Speaker 1: people can sense it. And then I realized I have
Speaker 1: nothing to be ashamed of. And I decided to tell
Speaker 1: my dad's story because not as a boohoo, but as
Speaker 1: a declaration of what a beautiful life I've chosen to
Speaker 1: lead because of that, and how absolutely passionate I am
Speaker 1: and what I hate saying, Oh, what a blessing was
Speaker 1: in my life, but how because of what I experienced
Speaker 1: and learned, the gifts that I have because of that,
Speaker 1: the intuition, the empathy, the sensitivity. I'm so sensitive other's feelings.
Speaker 1: I can't even tell you my biggest fear in life
Speaker 1: is that I would be in the room with someone
Speaker 1: and there's someone sitting over there, uncomfortable, trapped in their
Speaker 1: own thoughts. I can't bear the thought. I'm so sensitive
Speaker 1: to people I want. That's why I love photography. I
Speaker 1: love for people to see how a thing beautiful they are,
Speaker 1: that I can see it. They think no one else
Speaker 1: can see it, I can and I can show it.
Speaker 1: So when I decided to do shark skin boots, I
Speaker 1: was shedding my shame because I realized I have nothing
Speaker 1: to be ashamed of. That's why I did it.
Speaker 3: Rachelle's work has since won awards and been featured in
Speaker 3: Vogue and Times Square. Her specialty in portraiture and the
Speaker 3: way she has processed her life is reflected in her work.
Speaker 1: I like to put as much passion as I can
Speaker 1: into my work, and I also consider everything I do
Speaker 1: as a self portrait, no matter what the subject matter is,
Speaker 1: because this is my soul. And I'm saying, hey, do
Speaker 1: you want to see what my soul looks like? Do
Speaker 1: you want to see what every experience I've had in
Speaker 1: my whole life culminates in the way that.
Speaker 3: I view you? You know?
Speaker 1: And I realize I just had to let the fear go.
Speaker 1: The person that was judging me was me. There's nothing
Speaker 1: to judge it, and there's literally nothing to be ashamed
Speaker 1: of at all whatsoever. And I can stride with my
Speaker 1: full confidence and not think I do not care what
Speaker 1: anyone thinks of that. Actually, I always, oh, what are
Speaker 1: they going to think? I don't care anymore. I don't
Speaker 1: have it. I don't have to prove it to myself
Speaker 1: anymore whatsoever.
Speaker 3: And you mentioned you've had to make sacrifices in order
Speaker 3: to pursue this career. As an artist, especially the early days.
Speaker 3: What were some of those sacrifices, man, I mean, I.
Speaker 1: Guess financially, there's always a huge financial sacrifice because you
Speaker 1: have to pay to play in photography. First off. The
Speaker 1: other sacrifice, and this is something I can never get back.
Speaker 1: It's the time with my girls. I can never get
Speaker 1: that back. Unfortunately. It takes a big energy, it takes
Speaker 1: a big emotional like if you're doing it the way
Speaker 1: I'm doing it, I'm not doing family portraits in the park,
Speaker 1: even though I do do that for free once a
Speaker 1: year for families that can't afford it. I think it's important.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean I try to sacrifice as much
Speaker 1: as I can for it because this is my absolute passion.
Speaker 1: I literally feel like this is where I'm supposed to
Speaker 1: be finally, And I mean I sacrifice a lot, even
Speaker 1: just recently on my recent expeditions. I always sacrifice comfort.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's food you're sacrificing, like I don't know, you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes it's sacrificing your own cultural standards. You know, do I,
Speaker 1: as a female veteran, do I want to go somewhere
Speaker 1: where I need to cover my hair and all this
Speaker 1: and that? No, I'll sacrifice it all day long. Now,
Speaker 1: that's fine. For someone else's comfort, all day long. I
Speaker 1: will always sacrifice for someone else's comfort. It's my honor,
Speaker 1: it's my duty to do that as a photographer.
Speaker 3: Do you consider yourself successful now? Uh?
Speaker 1: Yeah, in my spirit. You know, like money and career,
Speaker 1: as far as success goes, maybe sometimes those things don't
Speaker 1: go hand in hand as an artist. But the sheer
Speaker 1: fact that I know that there's people all over this
Speaker 1: world they get to glimpse my soul and the soul
Speaker 1: of someone else. It's an honor. I'll tell you what.
Speaker 1: I'll share a really quick story in the Paul. Recently,
Speaker 1: I had the honor of photographing these children. And I've
Speaker 1: seen them a couple of times that I've been into Paul,
Speaker 1: and I was always too scared to photograph them because
Speaker 1: it was too emotional for me. These hungry children living
Speaker 1: in a trash pile basically, and I got dang a fever.
Speaker 1: I end up going on a trek to break the fever,
Speaker 1: and on my track, I had the big epiphany. I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm helpless. I can't do anything for them. I can't
Speaker 1: do a thing for them. The helplessness is what really
Speaker 1: like gets you. And I thought, oh yeah, I can.
Speaker 1: I can give them the only thing I can give,
Speaker 1: which is my photography. So I circled back and went
Speaker 1: there with my friend. I got permission from like the
Speaker 1: Head due to the trash pile, and I took the
Speaker 1: most breathtaking, lease stunning. They welcomed to me, and these
Speaker 1: young girls were deeper, deeper, deeper by their tent right,
Speaker 1: these muses, these muses, this is a life changing experience
Speaker 1: gifted me with these portraits and the fact that I
Speaker 1: know for a damn fact, I will exhibit these portraits internationally,
Speaker 1: people from around the world. It's emotional. Sorry, people from
Speaker 1: around the world are going to gaze and see the
Speaker 1: beauty of these children. There's nothing I can do, but
Speaker 1: I can do that, and I can give them the
Speaker 1: most dignified moment to be seen and witnessed about how
Speaker 1: damn beautiful they are to me. I don't know if
Speaker 1: I can get a higher level of success in that.
Speaker 3: What is one thing or maybe a couple of things
Speaker 3: that at the time you saw as really being a negative,
Speaker 3: something that you weren't sure you were going to get
Speaker 3: out of, and now in hindsight, you see it as
Speaker 3: really having launched you to the success you are now.
Speaker 1: Oh man, absolutely losing the health of my arm and
Speaker 1: losing the mobility of my right hand because it destroyed
Speaker 1: my career and my self confidence. But I understand now
Speaker 1: that if that wouldn't have happened, I would have had nothing,
Speaker 1: and I would have been trapped in that abuse of marriage,
Speaker 1: and I would have been trapped working for the government,
Speaker 1: my whole life in a man's uniform. And what plummeted
Speaker 1: me and what I thought took everything that I'd work
Speaker 1: so hard for me actually is what propelled me. And
Speaker 1: also my dad's death, because I can live so passionately now,
Speaker 1: I live so hard and so passionately. It's because of
Speaker 1: his murder. The shitty stuff is always actually not shitty
Speaker 1: at all.
Speaker 3: That's such a beautiful answer. Thank you so much, Michelle,
Speaker 3: Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me. Was an honor.
Speaker 3: Rachelle still lives in California, not far from her two daughters,
Speaker 3: who are now fully grown. When I spoke with her,
Speaker 3: she had just gotten back from a photography trip Abron
Speaker 3: to take a look at all of her beautiful work.
Speaker 3: Visit her website at steelcapture dot com. You can also
Speaker 3: follow her on Instagram at steal Capture. Trust me, she
Speaker 3: is worth a follow to see all of her spectacular photographs.
Speaker 3: Thanks for listening. Thanks for listening to this episode of
Speaker 3: she Pivots. If you made it this far, you're a
Speaker 3: true pivoter, So thanks for being part of this community.
Speaker 3: I hope you enjoyed this episode, and if you did
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