Today we’d like to introduce you to Elisabeth Haun.
Hi Elisabeth, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
My name is Elisabeth Haun. I am 28 years old and a photographer based out of Payson, Utah. I specialize in Cosplay and Fantasy photography and have a blast doing it.
I started doing photography at age 18. For a couple of years, I only really took photos at my brother’s sporting events or wildlife/landscape photography. In 2016, I was introduced to the world of cosplay and made some friends in the community. A few of them were willing to meet me in the woods and let me try taking photos of them and I got hooked.
It was something I loved, but also something I knew I didn’t want to rely on for income so I was also attending Utah Valley University part-time with my heart set on being a scientist. During those first few years, my photography was getting better and better, but my mental health was getting worse. I was broke, floating between odds and ends jobs. I had a couple of really hard deaths in the family. My grades slipped to the point where I was no longer academically eligible for my student loans so I had no choice but to drop out of school. I decided I needed a pretty drastic change in my life so I quit photography completely and started pursuing a new dream: joining the military.
It seemed like a pretty good idea. The Navy would pay for my school and I’d get a stable job on top of getting to travel. The only obstacle was that I was about eighty pounds over the weight limit required to enlist. But I wanted to enlist, so that was an obstacle I was willing to tackle. And I did. I switched to a keto diet, started swimming a few times a week, and joined a gym. In a little under a year, I lost almost 100 pounds and qualified to enlist.
In March 2018, I went through the Military Entrance Processing Station in Salt Lake City. Everything was going according to plan and then right before my group was about to go into the Oath of Enlistment Ceremony, I got pulled back to the medical exam area and my dream abruptly ended. They’d found a concerning level of sugar in my urine sample and sent me home to see a civilian doctor.
Two days later, I was diagnosed with auto-immune Type 1 diabetes and was not only disqualified from military service but also now had a lifelong, auto-immune disease with no cure. I cannot describe how bad the depression I entered was. I had spent the last year of my life getting healthy only to find out that my immune system had effectively shut down my pancreas. I was depressed. There were times I contemplated suicide. It was a very dark time.
Photography pulled me back out of it.
In 2021, a friend asked me if I’d be willing to pick my camera back up to take her Lord of the Rings-inspired anniversary photos. I said yes and it was the best decision I think I’ve ever made. I fell back in love with photography and restarted my business. I decided to focus on the kinds of photography that brought me joy.
Two years later, that is what I’m still doing. I’m chasing that joy, in photography and life. I reenrolled at UVU and am pursuing my degree in Geology. My photography business is doing great. I love getting to work with cosplayers and customers, bringing a bit of fantasy into reality. I started doing self-portraits and not only fell in love with the way they made me feel, but I fell in love with being a body-positive photographer.
I love what I do and I’ve come to realize that life isn’t a straight line. Your path is going to crisscross and dead-end and take you places you probably don’t want to be at times. But if you do the things you love, focus on finding joy, and surround yourself with positive people… you really will come out the other end.
Can you talk to us about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back, would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It has not been a smooth road.
Getting diagnosed with T1D was pretty much the biggest bump in the road you could have. Being thrown into a new life of having a chronic medical condition is jarring. I have an insulin pump and a glucose monitor that I wear 24/7 which has made stuff easier but it’s still scary.
There have been a handful of times when the only reason I’m even alive is because someone else in my house heard my low blood sugar alarms and poured apple juice down my throat. It does suck.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I do photography. I specialize in cosplay, fantasy, and creative concepts. I am known for doing photoshoots at unique and awesome locations, as well as being a body-positive photographer. I am most proud of my self-portrait shoots.
After I got diagnosed, I developed a lot of body image problems, and self-portraits have helped me love myself again. I think what sets me apart from others is that I don’t do this, nor do I WANT to do this for a living. I do photography mostly as a form of therapy and for FUN.
Because of that, I don’t have to worry as much about the finances of a business, so I’m able to work with a much wider range of clients and can focus more on coming up with crazy, wacky ideas that make me happy.
What do you like best about our city? What do you like least?
The thing I like best about Utah in general is the variety we get with landscapes. You can have a photo shoot in a forest one day and be in a red rock desert the next. There are days when I’m with a Spiderman cosplayer in downtown Salt Lake in the morning and by that evening, I’m with a Jedi out on the Salt Flats!
The thing I like least about Utah is the traffic and crowds, especially the outdoors. There are a lot of hiking trails and photoshoot locations that I just don’t go to anymore because they are too busy.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.valhallaphotos.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/valhalla.photos/
Image Credits
Elisabeth Haun, Valhalla Photography
