New Year's Eve Bash - Explore Big Sky

seCtion 3:
Life // Land //CuLture
gaLLery
In 2009, Rebecca Soulé sent a text
message to her sister-in-law Erin with a
photo of an extraordinary sunset, and a
note saying she loved her. Erin was sick
with leukemia, and Soulé hoped the
photo showing beams of light coming
from the clouds would comfort her.
Erin died two days later.
Several years later, Soulé received a call
from a woman who’d seen that same
image on a business card Soulé had
posted in the Cateye Café in Bozeman.
The woman had lost both of her
parents that year. Seeing that image,
she told Soulé, was the closest to god
she’d ever felt.
“Knowing I could make someone feel
like that was a pivotal point for me,”
Soulé says. “It was the biggest compliment
I’ve ever received.”
That phone call eventually led Soulé
to her next project—a show depicting a
year of sadness and healing in her own
life, told through self-portraits and images
of others.
Soulé, 35, lives in Bozeman with her
3-year-old daughter Olivia. A self-
taught photographer,
she has an intuitive and
emotional connection to
people.
Photography has been a
tool for healing, and something
Soulé never planned
to share with anyone. But
when Erin was diagnosed
with leukemia, it put life
in perspective.
“It made me think about
what I want to do, what
I want to be,” Soulé says.
“Life is short. I realized it
was time to start showing
this work, to actually go
for it.”
She launched her business,
LucaPhotography, in June
2010, figuring if she was “meant to
be in it, it [would] show itself.”
Right away, she published a two
page black and white spread of
canoes on Hyalite Lake, in Outside
Bozeman—a centerfold, she jokes.
A month later she won five awards
in the Gallatin County Fair photo
contest. Her work appeared in Montana
Parent, Kidsville and Healthy
Living soon after.
By late spring, she was shooting
more family portraits and kids,
something she likes because kids are
“silly, and have the freedom to be
themselves.”
Describing herself as a “dual artist,”
Soulé likes this whimsical photography
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Big Sky Weekly
December 16, 2011
Volume 2 // Issue #22
the art of healing: LucaPhotography
By emiLy StifLer
big sky weekly managing editor
and also more challenging work where
she can dig deeper into human emotions.
This summer she shot photos with
Family Promise, a nonprofit that helps
and houses homeless families. The
images of volunteers and two homeless
families that hung in the U.S. Bank pagoda
let her realize the potential power
behind her work.
december 16, 2011 33