This photoshoot was actually one of the first child portrait sessions I ever did and it is still one of my favorite shoots for so many reasons. First off, I love this little natural superstar, and her unawareness and her laid back way when she is alone. Second, I was so nervous about losing the light and not being able to shoot in every single planned location, that I went against the typically advised golden hour session time (1 hour before sunset) and scheduled 2 1/2 maybe even 3 hours before sunset; hilarious I know. We even had a snack break mid "hike", and there was a lot of hiking going on if you can't tell by the perfect demise of her styled coiffe at the end of the session. This poor, gorgeous subject was directed by me to explore on her own and I would occasionally tell her to "look here." Now, sometimes I feel as if I can get too involved and need to tell myself to just step back. She already had such a natural curiosity for nature that it really worked to my advantage to just let her walk around being seven, and "a magical fairy in a secret land" as I recall her saying. Furthermore, because of my ridiculous fear of "losing the light" I had to shoot in high sun, not really knowing what I was doing. I managed to capture some hard contrast images in the beginning that honestly I ended up loving with a little help from photoshop three years later.
Going through my photographic wonder road over the last several years and culling through my work has been very cathartic and really encouraging to recognize beauty in my work where I didn't see it previously. I can't wait to see where my work will grow over the next several years, now that I'm a little less self critical and so much more open to the learning process and letting go!