‘Real, raw emotion’: Local photographer Lilli Valdez preserves reminiscence and moments

For Craig photographer Lilli Valdez, the digital camera is not only a device for taking photos. It is a strategy to meet individuals, calm nerves, mark milestones and protect moments for households and people.

Valdez, who began her pictures enterprise in 2022, mentioned her path to the occupation started in center college, lengthy earlier than she purchased her first skilled digital camera.

She has labored in customer support since she was 15. In these roles, she was drawn to being round others and making their day somewhat higher.

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“I just always knew that being around people was what I wanted to do my whole life,” Valdez mentioned.

Photography gave her a strategy to mix that love of individuals with a lifelong curiosity in photos. Valdez mentioned she has liked taking photographs for so long as she will be able to bear in mind. As a center college scholar, relations known as her the “selfie queen” as a result of she was all the time taking photos of herself with household.

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For Valdez, that was the start of her curiosity in a type of artwork wherein individuals had been the main focus. She doesn’t describe herself as a panorama photographer, and if there are not any individuals within the body, it normally just isn’t her most popular type of capturing.

That focus has carried into her enterprise. Valdez images weddings, newborns, households, highschool seniors, maternity classes, engagements and different main life occasions. She acquired her first skilled digital camera in April 2022, bought from the identical photographer who had taken her senior photos. By June of that yr, she had fashioned an LLC and was working to get her title into the group.

That identical yr, she mentioned, she was voted finest in Moffat County. This yr marked her fourth yr within the working for first place.

The transition from taking telephone photographs to working with an expert digital camera got here with a studying curve. Valdez mentioned she hung out researching, experimenting with digital camera settings and studying that pictures is excess of pointing a digital camera and urgent a button.

“I knew what I wanted to shoot, but I had to learn a little about how to shoot it,” she mentioned.

That means of studying has not stopped. Valdez mentioned her purpose is to get higher every time she works. When she seems again at photographs from six months in the past, she will be able to see how a lot she has grown.

Valdez mentioned she additionally appreciates the group of photographers in Craig and the encircling space. In a small city, she mentioned, photographers profit from each other as a result of every particular person has a unique type and method. She has constructed friendships via pictures and values the prospect to collaborate, commerce classes and be taught new suggestions from others.

While some photographers want landscapes as a result of individuals might be unpredictable, Valdez leans into that unpredictability. She mentioned being an extrovert and a “people person” helps her join with shoppers and make them really feel comfortable.

That talent is very necessary throughout weddings, household classes and different emotionally charged moments. Valdez famous that whereas weddings might be annoying, a part of her job is to remind individuals to breathe and benefit from the day.

For households with toddlers or infants, her method is to not drive each hand into the correct place or each smile into the identical pose. Instead, she desires photographs to really feel actual.

“If your kids are running around and screaming and having fun, I would rather capture those moments than 10 posed photos where they look unhappy,” Valdez mentioned. “I want real, raw emotion in the photos.”

She has discovered to make use of humor, dialog and somewhat little bit of playful stress to assist shoppers loosen up. With household classes, Valdez mentioned she tries to remind them that their youngsters could look again on the pictures for the remainder of their lives.

At the middle of Valdez’s work is the idea that pictures preserves greater than appearances. It preserves reminiscence.

That turned particularly clear to her via weddings and new child classes. At one latest marriage ceremony, Valdez mentioned she didn’t know a single particular person when she arrived. She was nervous that morning, however by the tip of the day, she known as her mom in pleased tears.

“I said, that was one of the best days of my life,” Valdez mentioned.

The expertise helped her perceive the belief shoppers place in her. Weddings are stuffed with necessary particulars, she mentioned, and households belief her to seize every second. Newborn classes carry a unique sort of belief, as households invite her into their houses after certainly one of life’s most weak experiences.

“It’s not just pictures,” Valdez mentioned. “It’s memories.”

Those reminiscences are what preserve her excited concerning the work. Although she enjoys many sorts of classes, Valdez mentioned she is very drawn to main life occasions similar to senior photographs, maternity classes, engagements and weddings. She likes being current when one thing large is going on in an individual’s life.

Valdez first handled pictures as a facet enterprise. Following the delivery of her son in November 2023 and her daughter in July 2025, she now balances her full-time pictures profession with life as a mom of two younger youngsters.

Being photographed herself has additionally deepened her appreciation for the work. Valdez mentioned she loves having photographs of herself along with her husband and youngsters, figuring out she’s going to be capable to look again a long time from now and do not forget that chapter of life.

Valdez mentioned she sees pictures as her long-term profession and that the job fulfills the identical want to be a smiling face, assist individuals really feel higher and provides them one thing significant.

When requested how creating artwork makes her really feel, Valdez had a easy reply.

“Fulfilled,” she mentioned.

That success is available in small, lasting moments. It comes when a consumer makes certainly one of her photographs a profile image or when she walks into a house and sees her work displayed on the partitions.

“How special is it that I get to be in their living room every single day,” Valdez mentioned. “That truly is the best part of my job.”