Photographing 1,000 women makeup free - with Cait Miers
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What inspired Cait Miers to create the Laugh Lines makeup‑free portrait project?
Listener. Wipe off your makeup, come and sit in the chair. I'm gonna take your photo. I'm gonna show you the photo. How does it feel to look at yourself?
Kate Myers. Welcome to the podcast. We are so excited to have you. Yes, we are. So excited to have you. And if the name is new, guys, you may have heard of Laughlines, which you are the creator of, which we're gonna talk about lots today, but you're also a surf fashion and lifestyle photographer based in the lovely Byron Bay. I was just there. Really? Yeah.
You know what? I actually live in Tolkien now.
Oh my god.
You're actually definitely great. You're even more local. Torquay is 100% for anyone that doesn't live in Victoria. Or even Australia. I'm so sorry. Yeah. True. True. True. This will be kind of irrelevant to this reference, but I do feel like Torquay and Byron Bay. Like Torquay is the Byron Bay equivalent in Mel in Victoria. It's not as busy. I think it's cool. But I feel like cool it it's the cool, like where the cool, chill people go. That wanna connect like can truly connect with nature. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's okay. But still kinda connect with the city? Yeah.
I was like, oh I'm back in Vic, so I need to find somewhere that's like firing and talky was that.
There we go. Yeah. There we go. Yeah.
Well, we are so excited to chat to you today. Uh, but we're feeling very, I feel like off off-brand. Right now because we're in makeup, which is something that we usually do. And this is I 100% want to ask you about this as well in the conversation about makeup, no makeup. But while you answer the first question, which is what made you want to do this in the first place? Because your laugh lines, the idea is to take a thousand photos of a thousand, you know, people without makeup on. Wha why did you come to this? And while you talk about it, we're gonna take our makeup off. We are. Oh my god, yay.
Look at you go. Well of course. Okay, so yeah, I guess I've been a surf and fashion photographer for like twelve years now. I'm thirty three years old. I studied photography at uni at RMIT and then straight after that I went straight into freelance. Um And yeah, it's been an incredible career. I've shot a lot of incredible women, a lot of sports people, a lot of uh campaigns for big, big surf brands. Um But, you know, over the time I've kind of observed a lot of um
How did Cait’s background in surf, fashion and lifestyle photography shape Laugh Lines?
Women just talking negatively about themselves. Um, you know, like and I feel like you guys would know this being in front of the camera a lot, it's like There's a lot of self criticism going on and I would notice it like would be in such beautiful locations. We've got a whole makeup team, you know, everything should be perfect and there's still Like which isn't you know, no shade on that person. It's just observing, you know, what what was happening and I was just like, This has to stop. And like, you know, I'd I do it myself. Like I'm always like, Oh, delete that or you know, my f yeah, friends, like as women we kind of all do it and I was like, okay, so got a bit of a platform. Um, how do I you know, I love big ideas, I love crazy delusional ideas, main things.
How do I I guess kind of launch into the next stage of my career? Um, 'cause I feel like I've I've hit a lot of the s the things that I've wanted to do in the surf industry. Um and I'm still very much in that industry, but um yeah, I just wanted to create something meaningful and um inspiring to young women and women everywhere and Laugh lines came into my head when I was on a beach in France a few years ago. I was like, huh. Mum and like I was like mum and daughter portraits maybe. I was like mum and daughter portraits without makeup on. I'm like, who's gonna pay for that? No one's gonna pay for that. Then I was like, Maybe they're not paying for it, maybe I'm doing it, you know, it was like this thought process of like
And then I was like, a thousand portraits without makeup on. Is that that's crazy? What? You know? And then I I was like, okay. Let's do this. And I kind of went into um Uh I wanna I wanna do a documentary. That's kind of the the I started doing, you know, going into that world and that's so new for me.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What inspired Cait Miers to create the Laugh Lines makeup‑free portrait project?
0:03–2:36
2
How did Cait’s background in surf, fashion and lifestyle photography shape Laugh Lines?
2:36–6:13
3
What have women said when they see their makeup‑free photos for the first time?
6:13–9:56
4
Why does Cait believe removing makeup can change self‑worth and beauty standards?
9:56–14:07
5
How does the project address the broader cultural pressure of ‘fixing’ appearance?
14:07–17:48
6
What challenges and successes has Cait experienced while building Laugh Lines as a business?
17:48–21:49
7
What advice does Cait give to creators who want to start purpose‑driven projects?
21:49–25:34
8
What final message does Cait share about self‑acceptance and taking action?
25:34–28:03