A Woman's Gift

I love portraiture.  The challenge of creating a great portrait both thrills and scares me.  Portraits are one of the most difficult things for me to shoot because I have to figure out how to get people to open up and trust me.  It’s an intimate experience, and I often stress about it because a portrait shoot is like going on a blind date.  You reveal pieces of yourself, and your subject shares with you about himself/herself.  At the end of the date, you pretty much know whether or not you hit it off and built a meaningful relationship.  Well, in a photoshoot, it’s sorta the same thing.  If I take a great photo, I pretty much know the person likes me, and we have a connection there.  But there’s always the fear that I won’t be able to get the right expression and vibe from my subject, then I’ll start worrying about why the person won’t open up to me.  And like the blind date, I’ll start asking myself, “What’s wrong with me and why doesn’t this person like me?”  Crazy, I know.  Good thing that rarely happens. 

Anyway, enough rambling.  I shot these lovely photos of Mary at six months.  I wanted to push my creative boundaries and experiment with maternity shots that have a different look and feel from what other photographers were doing.  I wanted to create a classic, painterly image that embodies the ethereal beauty, innocence, power,  and spiritual nature of women.  I am pleased with the results. 

An instructor once told me that a portrait is a gift.....given from the subject to the photographer.  Thank you Mary for your gift of trust.