A portrait session that started as a gift
This is the start of a series about my sessions, seen from my side of the camera. What I notice in each person who stops in front of the lens, how I photograph them, and why. No marketing filter, just the human read on whoever sits down in front of me.
Because standing in front of a camera is hard for anyone. So the tone here will always be the same: admiration for each one who allowed herself and faced that challenge, and thanks for trusting it to me. The order is loose and doesn’t measure importance. The people I photograph have always been, for the most part, women, and this series will reflect that, including the subjects that make people uncomfortable and the opinions that won’t please everyone. That’s what this space is for: opinion, testimony, thanks, and record. Sometimes about the session, sometimes about the world, sometimes about nothing. Just existing for the sake of it.
Chayenne
I’m starting with Chayenne’s session because it began the wrong way around. I wasn’t chosen, I was the gift. A friend gave her the session, almost a surprise, and that changes everything about how I build the work.
Before a single frame, I needed to know one thing: did she actually want this, or had she just been given it? I found out slowly. She wanted it, badly. But the insecurity, and that stubborn idea that she wasn’t “the kind of woman who poses for a session”, had always held her back before she could chase one down on her own.
Then, halfway through our first conversation, she got to “fuck it”. She saw right there that it was time to do what she’d always wanted, and to give the camera the woman she already was inside: personality, presence, force. And Chay didn’t want a few “pretty” photos. She wanted photos with power. She wanted a session that gave back, in images, exactly what she felt by letting herself be there: freedom, strength, connection, joy.
It wasn’t hard to see where that was going. It would be a session with nudity.
We were in Jericoacoara. A paradise tucked into the northeast of Brazil, a mix of the Outback and the Gold Coast: dunes, wind, sea, and a heat that sticks to your skin. You can picture it, right? The place was on fire, Chay was on fire, and the photo had to burn with them.
That’s how the session came together, bit by bit. The shyness showed up, of course, but with no room to take over. Just enough to give a flash of honesty to every click. What stayed was the force of a woman who faces down and breaks the mould every single day, and who, that day, decided to show the world what she already knew: in her body and in her story, she’s the one in charge.
I knew the session was done at the click of the wave.
The water exploding behind her at the exact second. That was the intention from the start, but the sea doesn’t take orders, and it had never been that easy. One click. Just one. And the photo was there. The sea breaking behind her, and Chay standing in it, not needing to ask permission for anything.
One last thing. If you’ve ever told yourself you’re not the type of person who poses for a portrait session, that’s almost always exactly who I most want in front of the lens. No rush, no pressure. When you feel like it, I’m here.