Meet Chelsea Francis, Austin-based photographer and founder of Pass/Fail. When Chelsea gets to work, her focus is showcasing diversity and celebrating failures just as much as successes. Read on to learn how she views her personal style, what her approach to photography is, and why she decided to launch her own online publication.
I grew up in North Wilkesboro in North Carolina and stayed on the east coast until three and a half years ago. Then I moved to Austin, TX. We really just wanted a change of scenery, my husband and I. We wanted to visit a couple of places, but never made it anywhere else. We fell head over heels in love. Everyone is really kind and everyone is very inviting. You kind of get this Southern hospitality—but it feels genuine.
Fashion & Style
My first style icon was Ms. Frizzle from “Magic School Bus.” She’s delightful, and everything was the perfect amount of put-together. She was over the top, but she introduced the idea of the outfit to me—the head to toe all working together. I do enjoy basics. I enjoy a pair of jeans, but everything has to tell a story. Growing up watching “America’s Next Top Model,” Tyra Banks’ outfits always told a story. Now, I love Gracie Mercedes, Gabi Gregg, and Nicolette Mason. I define my personal style as “Off-Duty Creative Director.” A lot of patterns and non-boring basics. My number one go-to outfit is definitely a skirt and a T-shirt for work. There’s this brand out of LA, Big Bud Press, and I’m just absolutely obsessed with their T-shirts. They are super size inclusive, super body positive, and none of their clothing is gendered at all. It’s just a really, really cool brand—and I think that’s where fashion is going right now.
The industry is definitely moving toward this “You can wear whatever you want” kind of area. We’re still getting over some hurdles there, like when people still try to enforce beauty standards on the Internet and say that what people are wearing is unflattering, or that they don’t look good in whatever they feel like they look good in. I think, especially with fashion, the plus-size community has always been put in this box. Like, you wear fit-and-flare A-line dresses. If you’re the funny girl with personal style, you wear a cute vintage patterned fit-and-flare dress. All of those boxes are getting broken down. You can wear whatever you want if you feel confident in it. And there’s plenty of room for people who completely reject shapewear and love shapewear. It’s all personal preference, what you want to put on your body, and what makes you feel the most confident.
You can wear whatever you want if you feel confident in it.
The Road to Photography
I think the reason that I chose a career in photography in the first place is the chance to interact with so many different people. I’m an extrovert, I’m a Sagittarius, I’m an ENFP. All of my personality types point to me being extra social. I love getting to interact and listen to people talk about themselves, so that’s a huge reason that I chose to do it. The other big reason that I love to do it is that I get to empower people to go after their dreams. I get to be a little part of helping people launch businesses. Even if I’m just taking a headshot for someone, or I’m shooting an advertisement for someone to go into a magazine, or I’m shooting a story on someone. I get to be a little benchmark of people’s careers. It’s incredibly rewarding.
I started getting in front of the camera more because I didn’t want to be removed from what it felt like to feel that vulnerability. It always used to bother me when photographers would be like, “I’m never on the other side of the camera. I don’t know what to do.” Knowing what a plus-size body looks like in front of a camera can only help me know how everyone’s bodies look in front of a camera. I feel like a lot of plus-size women don’t often enjoy getting their photos taken, but that space is just as important for us. Everyone deserves to feel cute in a photo that’s not a selfie. Having a photo of yourself that you feel excellent in is so empowering.
I feel like a lot of times we look in the mirror and we see someone, but then, when we take pictures, we see a different person because of lighting and angles. When you get a great photo taken, you just need to be reminded that that’s who you are and that’s what you look like. I find it very, very important for cultivating self-love and self-acceptance. If you see yourself in the mirror one day and you think, “I look great,” take some self-timer photos. If they’re terrible, you can delete them. No one will ever see them, right? You can post them online and everyone will tell you that you look beautiful. You can just have them just for yourself. Or you can send them in a group text to your friends. That’s what I do. Just be like, “Look at how good I look today. Just compliment me. I need this.”
Everyone deserves to feel cute in a photo that’s not a selfie. Having a photo of yourself that you feel excellent in is so empowering.
Making the World More Inclusive
When I’m casting for clients, I try really hard to cast diverse body types, genders, and ethnicities as often as possible. I try and educate clients on why that’s important and why they don’t need a blonde, athletic model to model their planners or whatever. Everyone uses planners. Even if you have a fit granola company, a size-12 model can model your granola. A size-24 model can model your granola. I definitely try and be super conscious of that. In my own portfolio, I try and be conscious of that as well. It’s definitely a process. I don’t want to come off like I am perfect at it or that I’ve been perfect at it. I definitely sucked at it a couple of years ago. I didn’t realize that everyone in my portfolio looked like me, or like a skinnier version of me. I definitely had a crisis of consciousness about it where I was like, “I am part of the problem.” There was no one to blame but me. No one was curating my portfolio. All the clients that I was getting, they were all white mid-20s. Lately, I’ve been trying to think about that more and figure out how I can make even the smallest impact in more representation.
The Launching of Pass/Fail
I’ve been interested in success and failure for a while now. I feel like we’re starting to understand that there’s no real finish line when you’re an entrepreneur, or even when you work for someone else. You accomplish the “big goal” and then you still feel tired and burnt out. You don’t know how to revel in the success. And in the same fashion, you don’t know how to process failure. You don’t know how to make friends with it and learn from it. I’d been thinking about this concept for a while and I thought it would be a really great idea for a photo project. So, I pitched the project to a huge company, got some great feedback along the way, and ultimately the project got rejected when I was in Los Angeles on a solo business trip/vacation. I was devastated for about 24 hours, but it was mostly because I knew I’d have to do the project on my own. Eventually, I came to appreciate the fact that it got rejected because it gave me the perfect beginning to my project, Pass/Fail
Failure is incredibly important. You can gain so much information by processing failure. You can learn exactly where your limitations are, you can learn where you can grow, and you can discover that there are external factors outside of your control. By learning to process failure without getting upset at yourself in a non-constructive way, you can really learn what you’re made of. And that gears you up for success! When you think you’re failing, take the time to grieve. You wanted something really, really badly and it didn’t happen. That really sucks, and that’s okay. Separate your worth from your failure. You’re still so valuable and so incredible—despite having failed. We’ve all seen that video of Beyoncé falling off the stage. Beyoncé has failed before. This is your stage and you’ve just fallen off. You’re still Beyoncé in this situation. You get back up, you learn where not to step, and you finish your show.
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