Blog
Documenting your life , the vulnerability of saying yes.
J. was turning a new leaf after years spent in Montreal, building a community, relationships, a career. She was setting off alone to South America, not to start from scratch, but to continue becoming the version of herself she had purposefully chosen. She wanted to mark this journey of growth and exploration that had led to this moment, when she could finally pursue her dream. She wanted to commemorate it, document it, with flowers.
‘Mama’, ‘Mom’, ‘MooooooOooom’
Recently, I spent a morning photographing a mom who truly understood this feeling. She’s photographer herself and realized she was capturing everything but it wasn’t the whole story. She had made a deliberate choice to step in front of mine. We started in the yard and gradually wandered toward the woods. Her baby was heavy and soft in her arms, content to be carried. Her four-year-old was barefoot within mili-seconds, pulling his mother’s dress, asking her to play with him, to come here, to watch this. His moods changed quickly, he got sulky. He is four after all.
Take The Picture
Photography is vulnerable. It’s an intimate exchange of trust. It breaks self image wide open. I know that feeling. That the shape of you is wrong. It’s the feeling that is wrong, not the shape. And the more I hear it the more I understand that it’s rarely, truly coming from the core being of the person in front of me. It’s taught. We are taught to pick ourselves apart. Yet each time I hear some version of 'let me hide', it’s still jarring.