Your Story is You

What more can I say about portrait photography that I’ve not said before? Each person is sacred. Each person is beautiful. Against a wall or the backdrop of the sea. Sometimes I accompany a person to a location of great natural beauty, sometimes we convene in a conference room. It doesn’t really matter. It’s not about place. It’s about your spirit. And that can be captured anywhere. 

When I photographed Valerie, above, we went to the top of Mt. Tamalpais in Marin County, here just north San Francisco. It turned out to be a perfect place. The hills were green that day and the sun was warm. It brought out her playful, earthy self. She became an extension of the earth. It was as if I was a nature photographer and I caught her in her natural element. If you were to see all the photos from that day you would see that she was always in motion. Moving, dancing in the grass and on the stones. This photo captures a rare moment of her stillness. 

In Valerie’s case her story is told in many photos. I tell most stories with one. Your face is a story. Your eyes are a story. And no matter where we are we can tell it.