Today we’d like to introduce you to Julie Cannon.
Hi Julie, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I’ve always been fascinated by the stories people carry.
For years, photography was my primary medium. I built a family photography business capturing milestones, relationships, and the moments that often become the stories families tell for generations. But even then, I wasn’t just interested in photographs—I was interested in what they meant.
Over the last decade, I stepped away from business ownership to focus on raising my children and caring for my family. During that time, I experienced some of life’s most transformative seasons, including adoption, parenting children with unique needs, personal loss, and the unraveling of a marriage. Those experiences changed me deeply and ultimately brought me back to the creative work I’d always loved.
Today, I see myself less as a photographer and more as a storyteller. Photography remains an important part of what I do, but writing has become equally central. I’m currently working on a book exploring midlife, healing, and the unexpected invitations that often emerge from life’s hardest seasons. I’m also developing a podcast centered around meaningful conversations, personal stories, and the wisdom we gather along the way.
Whether I’m behind a camera, behind a microphone, or behind a keyboard, the goal is the same: helping people feel seen and reminding them that their stories matter.
What began as a photography business has evolved into a broader calling—using words, images, and conversations to explore what it means to be fully alive, especially in seasons when life doesn’t unfold the way we expected. Looking back, every chapter has prepared me for this one, and I’m excited to see where the story goes next.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Not at all. In fact, I think most of the meaningful parts of my journey have come through seasons I never would have chosen.
Like many women, I spent years putting my creative work on hold while raising children and caring for my family. During that time, life brought unexpected challenges, including navigating adoption, parenting children with unique needs, and eventually walking through the end of a long marriage.
There were seasons when survival took priority over creativity. I wasn’t building a business or writing a book—I was simply trying to make it through the day and care well for the people I loved.
Looking back, though, those experiences shaped me in ways success never could. They taught me empathy, patience, resilience, and the importance of paying attention to what really matters.
One of the biggest challenges has been learning to trust myself again. When you’re rebuilding your life in midlife, there isn’t always a clear roadmap. You have to learn how to listen to your own voice, take risks, and begin again before you feel fully ready.
Today, I’m restarting a photography business, writing a book, and launching new creative projects from a very different place than where I began. The road hasn’t been smooth, but I wouldn’t trade the perspective I’ve gained along the way.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
At the heart of everything I do is a belief that there is an art to paying attention.
Whether I’m photographing a family, writing an essay, interviewing someone for a podcast, or simply welcoming people into my home, I’m interested in what exists beneath the surface. Most of us move through life quickly, but when we slow down and truly pay attention, we begin to notice things that would otherwise be missed—the nuances, the contradictions, the beauty, the pain, the resilience, the humanity.
That’s where the story lives.
I see myself first and foremost as a storyteller, though photography has been the primary expression of that work for many years. Photography taught me how to observe. Writing taught me how to make meaning of what I observe. Conversations and interviews allow me to explore those stories in real time. To me, they’re all connected.
What I’m most proud of is not a particular photograph or project, but the environment I create around the work. Again and again, people tell me they felt comfortable, understood, and fully themselves in my presence. That means more to me than any image I could produce.
Hospitality is a core value in my life, and I think it influences everything I create. I don’t just mean hospitality in the traditional sense of opening my home, although I love that too. I mean creating spaces where people feel safe enough to be honest, seen enough to be known, and valued enough to share their stories.
In many ways, that’s what I’m building toward in this next season. Through photography, writing, podcasting, and future creative projects, my hope is to create places where people encounter something true—about themselves, about others, and about what it means to be human.
What sets me apart is that I’m rarely interested in the surface-level version of a story. I’m interested in the deeper narrative underneath it. Every person, every family, every conversation, every season of life carries a story worth paying attention to. My work is helping bring those stories into the light.
We’d love to hear about how you think about risk taking?
I wouldn’t describe myself as someone who takes impulsive risks. In fact, I’m probably the opposite. I tend to think deeply, gather information, and sit with decisions for a long time before making a move.
But when I look back on my life, I realize I’ve taken some significant risks.
I grew up in a small town in Oregon where many people spend their entire lives within a few miles of where they were born. There’s nothing wrong with that, but even at a young age I felt drawn to explore a bigger world. Over the years, I’ve moved from Oregon to California, from California to Nashville, and built a life that looks very different from the one I imagined growing up.
For me, the biggest risks have rarely been geographic or financial. They’ve been personal.
There have been seasons when I lost confidence in myself and my own voice. Seasons when I was so focused on caring for others that I stopped paying attention to my own dreams. The risk I’m taking now is different than any I’ve taken before: it’s the risk of believing in myself again.
I’m approaching fifty, and I find myself asking a simple question: What would happen if I stopped waiting?
This season has required me to pursue opportunities that I’ve put off for years—writing a book, launching a podcast, rebuilding a business, and stepping more fully into creative work that feels deeply meaningful to me. None of those things come with guarantees. In fact, most creative work doesn’t.
But I’ve come to believe that the greater risk isn’t failure. The greater risk is reaching the end of your life knowing you never gave your gifts a chance to fully emerge.
So while I may not be a natural risk-taker, I’m learning that courage often looks less like jumping and more like finally saying yes to the things you’ve quietly known you’re meant to do all along.
Pricing:
- Photography sessions start at $500
- Event pricing starts at $1500
- Contact me for speaking
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.juliecannon.life/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/juliekcannon/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thrivephoto
