A series about becoming the person you were always meant to be.

The idea

We spend a lot of our lives covered up: by expectations, by doubt, by the version of ourselves we think we’re supposed to be. But underneath, something is already glowing, waiting for the right moment to emerge.

This series is about that moment. It’s about the quiet, in-between time when you start to feel yourself change, and about the courage it takes to step out of the cocoon and become who you were meant to be.

Act I: The Cocoon

In the first three frames, she’s fully covered and low to the ground at dusk. At first the veil hides everything, but as the series goes on, a warm glow begins to show through the fabric, and a hand and arm appear. Something is alive in there, and it’s getting ready.

Act II: Awakening

Act III: Emerged

The final image is black and white. She’s standing, the veil trails behind her like something she’s finished with, and she looks back toward the light. I chose monochrome on purpose: nothing left to hide behind, just a person fully herself.

Behind the scenes

• Location and time: Prescott National Forest
• The veil: Wedding Vail netting. It needed to be transparent enough to see my model. I wanted it to read as both a cocoon and a net.
• The glow: Godox V100 off camera gelled with a red/pink, placed inside the fabric at times and out of the fabric
• Gear: Nikon z8 camera paired with a Nikkor 50mm lens set to f/1.2
• The edit: I graded the dark frames towards deeper and darker tones for night and incubation, the misty frames toward soft pink for dawn, and converted the final frame to black and white so it would stand apart as the destination.

If this series speaks to you: I love creating personal, conceptual portraits like this one. If you’d like to talk about a session, reach out and lets make something special! Request a shoot here

A note to anyone who needs it: Wherever you are in your own story, you are enough, and the world is better with you in it.