The Still Life: What This Newsletter Is and Why I Started It
On Julia Child, disco balls, and why I finally started writing to you.
I was maybe six years old. Sesame Street had just ended.
And there was Julia Child on PBS, cooking away, talking to the camera like it was the most natural thing in the world. Attempting to throw live lobsters into boiling water and making me giggle.
I immediately fell in love with her. And her cooking.
That was the beginning of something I wouldn't fully understand for another forty-plus years.
My elementary art teacher told my parents I had no artistic talent.
Said
Said the best thing I was good at was cutting straight with scissors.
And for some reason I found out, likely written on my report card. I was eight years old.
That comment got into my head and stayed there for a long time.
I think about that teacher sometimes. When I'm in my Louisville studio and someone sits down in front of my camera completely convinced they're not photogenic. When I'm writing something I wasn't sure I had the right to write. Like right now, actually.
(Launching a newsletter and wondering who exactly is going to care. Classic.)
Your gut knows more than anyone's opinion of you. Period.
Took a while to learn that. But I'm here now.
I grew up in the creatives friend group. Not super popular. Not outsiders. The ones who knew everyone, belonged everywhere, and were quietly making something out of everything around them.
Reading and writing were my favorites. I did gymnastics and dance. I baked with my grandmother, Grandma B, who wore White Shoulders perfume and made everything from scratch.
Signs pointed me toward the kitchen early. Toward the page. Toward the frame.
Grade school me? A little artist-chef-dancer in the making. She had no idea.
I've been a writer my whole life. Long before I picked up a camera.
Writing and photography have always lived in the same house with me.
Right now the writing wants to be loud.
So. The Still Life.
The name is a photography genre first. The practice of finding beauty in the quiet. The ordinary. The lemon on a cutting board. The steam from a cup. The table set for no one in particular but beautiful anyway.
As a brand photographer working in Louisville and Indianapolis, the images I'm most proud of are almost always the quiet ones. The ones that didn't announce themselves and catch me by surprise.
And a letter, I think, is its own kind of still life. A moment held. Words arranged with care. Something that exists outside the scroll.
Here’s where I actually am now.
Because I want to be honest about the timing.
My business has been in a reboot season. My oldest son, Jacob, graduated in the spring of 2024 and I intentionally stepped back from marketing to be on the sideline at every football and lacrosse game with a camera.
Business dipped. Google rankings slipped. I watched it happen and did it anyway.
Now Lincoln is a senior I’ll be on the sidelines of every marching band performance. Listening to every single note with joy and nostalgia. This time, I’m going to write my way through it.
Some things matter more.
And that season with Jacob clarified something for me about what I actually want this creative life to look like.
Travel cracked something open. Namibia I’m still processing and that gallery is still my favorite thing I've ever created. Iceland for my 50th. Scotland with 15 women who wanted to see the world on their own terms.
A new eye. A new rhythm. A whole new way of seeing that you genuinely cannot unsee.
And the food. The chefs. The kitchen as creative space. Julia Child started all of this on a weekday afternoon in Muncie, Indiana and I'm just now fully catching up to her.
Indianapolis is on the horizon too. I grew up in Indiana and I'm building back in that direction on purpose. As this version of myself. With food and travel and writing woven all the way through now alongside the brand photography work I've been doing for eight years.
I'm obsessed with who I'm becoming. Not the noise around it. The actual becoming.
That's what this newsletter is about.
The creative life in real time. The behind the scenes of a business and a practice and a person that doesn't always look linear from the outside. Because it isn't.
Once a month. Written from my office with the big picture window and the disco ball in the corner. Over coffee. Always.
For the creatives. For the builders. For the women in their own becoming who want honest company on the road.
For anyone who was told they were only good at cutting straight with scissors and kept creating anyway.
If that's you, you're in the right place.
Welcome to The Still Life.
Subscribe at jamafinney.com and letters come straight to your inbox once a month. No noise. Just the good stuff.
Onward.
xx J.
All images copyright JAMA FINNEY 2026
About the Author
Jama Finney is a Louisville-based portrait and branding photographer known for creating editorial-style imagery for entrepreneurs, creatives, and founders. Her approach blends professional branding photography with portrait-led storytelling, capturing the authority, humanity, and essence behind the people she photographs.
Jama works with clients across Louisville, Indianapolis, and beyond who want branding imagery that feels layered, powerful, and unmistakably like themselves.
When she isn’t behind the camera, she’s usually traveling, observing human nature with curiosity, or writing about the fascinating ways we move through the world.
Interested in working together? Explore branding sessions or get in touch here.
