Celebrating 20 years of life

Celebrating her body and her confidence

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   Twenty. 20.
   It's a number that's all of exciting, terrifying, and validating. Turning 20 releases you from your teens, springs you into pure adulthood, but also still leaves you young.
   This is Brooke on THE DAY she turned 20.
   I met Brooke a couple of years ago. She messaged me saying she loved to model and wanted to build her portfolio with me, so she booked a shoot and together we did a stunning night shoot and artistic / vintage indoor shoot.
   When she got a hold of me earlier last year saying she wanted to do ANOTHER shoot, I was SO excited! I LOVE working with out of the box people. Since the last shoot she moved to Grand Rapids, so we did all of our meetings over facebook messanger video chat.
   The thing I remember most from that conversation was her saying, "I'm so excited. I just really need a day like this, for me." It stuck out to me because the experience of her getting photographed was just as exciting to her as the portraits she was going to be getting back, which is pretty much my goal. To gift an experience, memoriesAND beautiful portraits that will outlive you.
It was the morning of, waking up with no stress because hair and makeup was going to be totally taken care of for her, showing up here with her boyfriend and us just cranking the music, having a dance party, and photographing her and how amazing she looked while doing it. It was the custom set we built for her and then encircling her with greens, tule, and fog from dry ice to make her look like a mystical princess. It was ALL of that that made the day great.
   When she came back to the studio for her viewing she then told me about her deeper reason for doing this... that at age 20 she finally felt comfortable and extremely confident in her body and her skin, and she wanted to celebrate that for herself. I don't know if you've ever read MY blog / self portrait session on this EXACT subject, but THAT is what makes me tick, THAT is what makes me get up in the morning- when women STOP saying sorry, STOP being shy, and embrace who they are, are proud of who they are, and they live life and feel good for THEM, and no one else.
   For her viewing she brought her mom, which after you view the rest of her portraits below you can imagine how hard it was for her to see her baby girl all grown up, and she asked, who are you going to show these to? To which Brooke replied- MYSELF! I did this for myself, I just want to look at ME- LOOK AT ME! AH! To know that her and I could work together to give her that moment makes me know I'm where I should be.
   Ladies- You deserve to know what that feels like. Allow Brooke to inspire you and do something great for yourself, so you have images to look back on when you're 60 from when you turned 20 and can say- Damn. That's ME. LOOK AT ME! And I've only gotten better from that day forward. Start a Revolution for yourself!