Wow, I cannot tell you how good it feels to finally be introducing my new brand and business name Jacqueline Benét Photography! My mission is to honor and empower women to preserve their legacy through all of life’s most meaningful moments.

I capture kind-hearted women who are cultivating a beautiful life full of love and joy because I want to tell their stories in a way that will allow them to be seen. I want them to feel empowered, to wonder at small moments, and preserve their cherished memories so that they can look back at their legacy of a life well-lived with feelings of pride, fondness, and gratitude.

The Why Behind the Name

Jacqueline Benét (beh-nay) is a pen name representing myself as the artist behind the lens. It is a shortened version of my complicated last name with a touch of French elegance. After deciding that I wanted to separate my full name that I used in my scientific career from that as an artist, I searched long and hard to find the best name that aligned with my vision and my brand. This is the one that just stuck. To me Jacqueline Benét is refined and approachable – empowering and self-assured, yet warm and empathetic. As Jacqueline Benét I hope to inspire and lead women to elevate and honor their lives in a way that is authentic and beautiful.

The Why Behind the Brand

In 2013, I started Whiskers and Willow Photography with my husband, Matt, to photograph couples in love through their engagement and wedding journeys. But a couple of years ago, I started to feel a calling toward photographing women’s stories through maternity, boudoir, and motherhood photography in addition to their beautiful love stories through engagements and weddings. It was at a time when I was pregnant and re-shaping my life toward what I valued most – time with family and a life full of love. I realized that many women like myself are trying to climb this career ladder in a society that’s not structured for supporting women who want time for family life. Work starts to become synonymous with life, and during graduate school I had this growing feeling that I wanted so much more for myself.

So when I was pregnant, I quit my postdoc fellowship and moved back to where Matt and I grew up in Seattle, WA without a job or a house. As an overachiever and perfectionist, I am the kind of person who wants to finish what I started and accomplish what I set out to do to the very best of my ability. So this was one of the hardest decisions to make in my life because I had to get over a feeling of failure. I had to get passed feelings of judgement. And I had to learn that just because we start going down one path doesn’t mean we can’t change course later on. So in digging deep to the core of who I am and what truly mattered to me, I made a leap that I am forever grateful for.

Life became so much better when I was finally living in alignment. And in becoming a mother, I started to understand how meaningful it is to be preserving this life that I am crafting for myself. And how precious each moment is as I watch time quickly passing by. It feels like just yesterday that my body transformed as I gave life to my sweet boy, Arthur. And now he is running around singing the alphabet. I melt every time he says “love you mama!”. And I think back to when I made that huge shift in my life to ensure that I would be around to raise him and watch him grow instead of always working just to climb a career ladder.

So it is through my life experiences of being an ambitious woman, a wife, and a mother that I seek to honor, celebrate, and empower women to tell their stories through my lens so that they too can preserve a beautiful legacy of this life of love and joy.

An engagement and a wedding is just the beginning, and I hope to be a part of your entire journey. Thank you for your support and I can’t wait to connect!