Emily.

I've gotten a lot of emails.
(Yes, it seems like I just tried to make myself sound popular.)
And they come from these incredible ladies.  Ladies who are beautiful on the inside and out.  And many of them say these nice, encouraging things that send my heart soaring.  They remind me of what an incredible gift it is to be a photographer.  But after all the warm fuzzies, there always seemed to be a statement like "I can't wait until I have an excuse for you to take pictures!"

Do not get me wrong.

I am honored.  Seriously.  Someone would already plan to entrust the beauty of their wedding or engagement or whatever special event and give me the opportunity to experience it and document it?  There just aren't words to put around how beautiful that is.  And it often moves me to tears.
But...
Yep.  Totally just threw in a but...
I kept finding that I was also a little bit sad after reading those emails.  Because somewhere along the line it seems like we've communicated to women that if you're not a senior or you're not engaged, there's no point in having pictures.
Bogus.
This time is beautiful.  And no relationship or "right of passage" deems you more worthy of pictures than anyone else. 
So I got all passionate.  And soap-box-y.  And I knew.  I had to find a way to start doing this.  To help girls realize how beautiful they are.  To press pause on this sacred moment.  To be in awe of their stories.  To record this time for future generations.
And so I sent that random email.
I knew her loosely.  The truth is, I had heard all this "oh my goodness she is so wonderful.." over and over.  And then I met her.  And totally knew everything I'd heard was right.  And so I sent her a random email.  And asked her to model for me.  I was all, "I know you don't even know me, but can I take pictures of you?"  And probably appeared stalkerish.
The truth? 
I wanted to meet her.  (For more than 5 minutes.)  There's just something incredible about her.
And...I wanted to find someone that I didn't know well to just be my guinea pig as I started figuring out what this looks like.
And she said yes.
Even though I may have appeared stalkerish.

So here it goes...  Chasing a vision.

PS: Emily - oh my word.  You are so wonderful.  I enjoyed hanging out with you SOOOOOOOO much.  I still can't believe you're in Greece?!?  Thank you for sharing yourself with me.  Your stories.  Your heart.  Your plans to one day adopt.  I left on cloud 9.  And I'm so excited to go get coffee with you (if you're okay with it) when you get back!!!


Emily, you are adorable

And gorgeous.

So much cuteness going on here

Wow

One of my faves.