Hello Friend,
My name is Jocilyn Sorenson, and I’m honored to have you stop by. I’m here to help you share your story, but first, allow me to tell you mine…
Once upon a time, when I was eight years old, I came to the great United States of America. I was a Guatemalan native with a full Spanish vocabulary and little knowledge of the world around me.
After five years of living with forty of my closest friends at an orphanage in Guatemala City, I was adopted into a Minnesotan family of five and immersed in American culture. If that wasn’t a blessing already, the greater miracle was being adopted alongside my two biological siblings.
It was in America that I learned about “dreams” and “dreaming.” I had never imagined an existence beyond what I knew in Guatemala—I didn’t know I could. Though my story did not begin easily, it remains abundantly clear that I was given the gift of a lifetime: opportunity.
At 15, I knew I wanted to own a business one day. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any particular skill set or a clear direction for what I wanted to build. At 18, I was working as a Montessori teacher (my first “big girl” job) and along the way, I picked up a camera.
After months of experimenting, I found the courage to share on social media a few self-portraits I had taken. Over time, people began hiring me, and before I knew it, I had a small seasonal photography business on my hands. I started out capturing portraits and even photographed two weddings out of state. Still, it wasn’t clear to me that this was the path I wanted to follow.
So I simply kept creating for the joy of it.
Fast forward to 2022. I had just left my job as an assistant project manager at a construction company. While the idea of running a business had always lingered in the back of my mind, this was the first time I wasn’t actively pursuing it.
In January of that year, I had plans to travel for a couple of months after which I’d decide what I wanted to do for work. But God had other plans. I found myself at a networking event where I knew absolutely no one, in a venue I had never been to, for no other reason than to be around women who were pursuing something—women who had vision for their lives and the fire to make things happen.
Let’s just say I got more than the cost of my ticket in return. That night, as I typically did, I created a video recap of my day to share on my Instagram story. I tagged the venue and event hosts as I naturally would, and the next morning I woke up to a DM from the venue owner. She loved what I had created and wanted to hire me to run her business’s social media.
A few short weeks later, ModernWell, a lovely women-centered coworking space, became my very first social media content creation and account management client. From that same event, the company that hosted the networking event also became a photography client of mine.
And the rest is future.
I heard it said once,
“Not everyone gets an equal start, but everyone gets an opportunity to run the race.”
So you see? Maybe it’s not about how we began as much as it is about how we choose to move forward? We don’t get the chance to write our beginnings, but I know we have power in determining how our stories end. With this knowledge, I dream of telling our stories with power & grace through beautiful & compelling imagery. I dream of partnering with businesses that bring light to this world and individuals who take life by the reins. After all, life is not a dress rehearsal, this is the final act. It would be my honor to capture the bold, epic, precious moments of your story as you write it and share it, too.
Sincerely & with love,
- Jocilyn Sorenson
For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. -Jeremiah 29:11