Photogenic Can Go Kick Rocks: Meka Hemmons on Confidence, Cameras and Owning That Sh!t
My guest today is Meka Hemmons. Meka Hemmons is a Chicago-based portrait photographer, founder of SpiderMeka Portraits, and creator of the Calm Before the Camera™ confidence system. Known as “the heart surgeon with a camera,” she disrupts the beauty myth to heal what we see in the mirror… and helps individuals and professionals look natural, credible, and powerful in their online presence.
Meka blends psychology, leadership insight, and visual storytelling to build trust through imagery. She is also a speaker, memoirist, podcast host of Unbeautifying, and author of the Corporate Headshot Day Playbook, a strategic framework for elevating team confidence and creating high-trust corporate branding. In this episode we discuss the calm before the camera method, being a confidence architect, the photogenic myth, photography and self-confidence.
Website - https://spidermeka.com
IG - https://instagram.com/spidermeka
YouTube - https://youtube.com/@spidermeka
FB - https://facebook.com/spidermeka
LinkedIn - https://linkedin.com/in/spidermeka
In this episode you will learn:
1. Why "photogenic" is a dirty word, and what someone is really saying when they claim they're not photogenic — Photogenic is a made-up word that puts people into piles of worthy and unworthy and takes all responsibility off the photographer. A bad photo is never the subject's fault, it's the photographer's. And when someone says they're not photogenic, what they're really saying is they don't feel attractive to themselves. The person in the photo you most need to connect with is you.
2. Why the world is chronically dysregulated and calling it normal, and how Meka's Calm Before the Camera system uses nervous system regulation as the real foundation for confidence — We've normalized dysregulation because everyone around us is doing it. But it's not normal and it's why we get ill. Meka's framework starts by asking what's actually happening inside the person before the camera ever comes out. Your nervous system cannot be hidden, whatever is going on inside is coming out in your eyes, your breath, and your body language whether you know it or not.
3. Why confidence is not something you return to, it's something you build from exactly where you are right now — Trying to go back to the confident person you once were is not the goal because that person no longer exists. Stop asking "how do I look?" and start asking "what do I want them to hear?" That one shift moves you out of performance and into presence, and presence is the only thing that creates real connection.
“So many times when we're feeling down about ourselves, the human of us know that the treatment is to help us." - 00:03:38
"Architecture is one of my favorite words these days, and what happens when we build things that are based on trend, or based on insecurity. " - 00:31:36
"This idea of un-beautifying is, once again, taking the current construct of what people think beauty is and inserting the truth.” - 00:57:42
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