From the moment Lindsey Baydoun picked up a camera as a little girl, she knew she discovered something special. Whether she was hanging out with her middle school friends at Red Caboose Park or the old Bellevue Mall, she was constantly documenting the moment with a photo.
“I was always that friend who brought the camera around, of course back then it was a throw away camera from Walgreens,” Lindsey said.
Capturing memories and candid images of her friends and family started off as a fun hobby. The more photos she took, the more she realized creating visual art through photography was becoming a passion. She started her own business in 2006 and never looked back.
From weddings to corporate events, or marketing for businesses and personal portraits, Baydoun works with people comfortable in front of the camera and those who have never had their photo taken. No matter the subject, her favorite part of the job is always the same: the person on the other side of the camera.
“I just really love working with people and shooting what they are passionate about,” she says.
Baydoun prefers to photograph her clients in natural light on a location around Bellevue or in a client’s space. She also has a studio and works on projects with her husband Dune Baydoun, a Nashville native who is also a photographer and videographer.
As a fellow creative, Lindsey says Dune helped encourage one of her more personal and symbolic photo shoots. In the series, Lindsey’s head is completely shaved, and purple or green paint is pouring down onto her head and face. After losing her father to dementia just days before her wedding, Lindsey says she looked in the mirror one day and noticed how damaged her long hair was from stress and grief.
She decided to shave her head as a way to start over. She didn’t notice the razor’s guard was missing and when she went to shave her head, the razor went all the way down to her scalp. She says she and Dune laughed at the mistake and he encouraged her to lean into it, shave the rest of her head and have some fun in the studio.
Lindsey was born in Northern California, but considers Bellevue home. Her family moved here when she was little, and she would grow up to fall in love with everything the area has to offer. She’s lived in other communities around Middle Tennessee but always knew she’d settle down in Bellevue, where she and Dune are raising their four children.
“My home is literally right down the road from the house I grew up in,” Lindsey said. “I care so much about this community, and that’s why I want to invest in it.”
Lindsey’s photography often takes her around the U.S. and abroad. She says she’s incredibly grateful for those opportunities, but watching her kids grow up has made her realize she wants to be home as much as possible.
“I’m very involved in everything they do, which I’m super lucky they still want me involved because they’re teenagers,” she says.
Lindsey hopes to focus more on clients in the Bellevue area during this next chapter of her life.
“The businesses and people here locally are so amazing and that’s who I really want to work with: the people who are passionate about what they are doing, no matter what it is,” she says “I want our community to be seen and appreciated for what it is.”
"I was always that friend who brought the camera around, of course back then it was a throw away camera from Walgreens."