Meeting Someone Who Wasn't Afraid to Be Seen
She told me she was anxious every time I photographed her. That shocked me, because I never saw it. What I saw was someone open, curious, playful, already halfway to letting go.
I have built my whole practice on one idea: perfection is not the point. Most people arrive in front of my camera braced for the worst, having already decided what they'll hate before I take a single frame. Holding someone's image of themselves is not a small thing to be handed.
She was different. Not because she was fearless. Because somewhere underneath the anxiety, she had already stopped being interested in the version of herself that needed fixing.
Most people book one shoot, and rarely for themselves. A birthday, an anniversary, a milestone. A reason. She booked because she wanted to know herself better. Then she came back. Then she came back again.
She is 46. She is a mother. She is, by her own description, still figuring out who she is.
"Honestly, it's because I don't fully know who I am yet," she told me, when I asked why she kept returning. "Or maybe more accurately, I think I knew once, a very long time ago, before survival became more important."
It's the thing I hear most from the women I photograph. Not one dramatic loss, but a slow erosion. Becoming what everyone else needs until you stop recognizing what's left.
Showing Up Anyway
She almost skipped the third shoot. She was in the middle of what she called a personal thunderstorm. Nothing felt right. She came anyway.
"What was shocking was how I felt compared to what the photographs captured. It didn't add up. Somehow, the camera, the universe and the company you keep still find pieces of you worth keeping."
There is a particular kind of courage in showing up for yourself when you don't feel like it. Not the cinematic kind. The quiet kind, the one that doesn't announce itself.
"I think every time I show up despite the awkwardness, despite the insecurity, despite the voice telling me not to, I get a tiny piece of myself back."
The Childlike Freedom We Lose
She talked about a childness we lose along the way. The instinct to jump in. The freedom of being fully inside a moment without auditing whether you deserve it.
"Children don't spend every second calculating whether they're worthy of being seen. They exist, fully and honestly, in the moment. Maybe that's part of the problem. We become so self-aware that we stop being alive inside our own experiences."
The Weight of a Story Written Too Soon
Then she said the thing I haven't been able to put down.
"I feel I was handed my biography, or maybe my obituary, depending on how you want to look at it, before I even knew how to hold a pencil, let alone write my own story."
"Expectations can become the graveyard of missed opportunities," she said. "These sessions reminded me that I have value as I am. As I grow. As I change. Not because I became more perfect, but because I am finally allowing myself to exist outside of who I thought I had to be."
Finding Fun Inside the Discomfort
Somewhere in there, she started having fun.
"Movement is art. The body is art. Photography is art. Everything is art when you let yourself experience it without constantly judging yourself inside it. So yes, it's fun. Truly fun. Even in the discomfort." She laughed. "Maybe there's something funny about the fact that even my healing somehow still includes costumes, dramatic lighting, and emotional whiplash."
By the third session, the radio station of self-criticism, as she called it, was getting quieter.
"Not gone completely, but quieter. It's not playing as loudly or as constantly as it used to, and I don't feel as tuned into it anymore."
Reframing Aging as Proof, Not Loss
She talked differently about her face. The lines, the changes, the memories written into it.
"I think I saw aging as loss for a long time, but now I'm beginning to see it more as proof. Proof that I was here. Proof that I felt things deeply. Proof that I lived. There's a softness growing in how I see myself now, and I really hope it stays."
Meeting the Unposed Self
By the last shoot she didn't ask what to wear. She didn't ask what to expect. She showed up.
I asked what it felt like to meet the version of herself that wasn't planned or posed, the one in the frames where she's loose and unguarded.
"Those are my favourite photos," she said. "I don't know how else to explain it except that it's the best inside-out feeling ever. And honestly? I want more of her. I like her a lot. I want to be friends with her, which may sound weird, but it's true. She's pretty cool. Bit of a firecracker. There's something really emotional about realizing that the version of yourself you've been searching for wasn't missing the whole time. She was just buried underneath the fear and noise of life."
What She'd Tell You
Ditching perfection is not a decision you make once. It's a practice, and it's messy. It's showing up to the third session in the middle of the thunderstorm and trusting something worth keeping will still be there.
I asked what she'd say to someone who keeps finding reasons not to step in front of a camera like this.
"There will always be more reasons not to do something. Always. Fear is very practical that way. We spend far too much of our lives waiting to become worthy of living each day fully. You are worth the space you take up in this world. And whether you realize it or not, some people love you exactly as you are right now."
The self-criticism isn't gone. She was clear about that. It's just quieter now, quiet enough that she can hear herself underneath it. She is 46, and a mother, and still figuring out who she is. She has only stopped waiting until she's finished to let herself be seen.
