Lily lost her two front teeth last week! Perfect timing!
Of course I had to grab my camera and snap a few photos in the front yard after school. She wanted to sit on top of our light-up Christmas llama! I know these aren't like the river portraits I usually share on here, but I never want to forget this.
I love sales. But I only love really, really goooood sales. So this Black Friday, I'm offering 50% OFF all black and white editing presets in my little shop. This is my last sale of the year!
Use code THESALE and stop fighting with your photos! One-click editing is here and it's beautiful.
All of the following images are by my beautiful, fierce and talented friend, Rachel Liu-Ballard, using my Story Waters presets for editing. I adore how they all have such a timeless, photojournalistic, emotional feeling to them.
Black and white will always have my heart.
I feel most powerful and beautiful when covered in mud, and clay and moonlight. River soaked hair and salty skin.
I thought I was the only one, but week after week, radiant women join me and say, "Me too," and this is everything.
Everything.
"...She will need her sisterhood." - Gloria Steinam
A week ago, before the big storm, in the woods of Wimberley, a sold out workshop gathered. We photographed women in rivers, women in the pouring rain, women nursing their babies. We ate made-from-scratch pastries and pizzas and soups and sang songs under the moonlight around a campfire. We supported and empowered and loved. Democrat, republican, foreign and domestic. Cuban and Native American and Chinese and English and French and...
And after everyone left on the last day, I collected some of the ashes from the fire pit, rubbed a little on my face, and let the energy of it all settle on my skin.
I don't know much about anything these days; it all feels inside out and upside down and cracked in half. But I promise you this: I believe in the power of sisterhood.
There have been times when I have questioned my direction. I've wondered if I should just take photos of smiling families in matching outfits and play the game. But this is my calling. This is my heart and soul and inescapable truth. Years ago, I sold everything we owned and traveled this country in a trailer fighting with everything in my bones for the preservation of the female spirit. I filled 100 pages of a hardbound book with faces of everyday female heroines that I absolutely fell in love with.
I BELIEVE IN US. I do. With every cell in my body and every star in my sky. And now, more than ever before, I am honored beyond words to continue to hold the space for this important and beautiful work.
In a time of blinding uncertainty, I hold steady in the knowledge that we are unbreakable, as long as we have each other.
Onward. All in.
I was interviewed for a podcast called This Week in Photography, Family. It was such an honor!
To listen, click on this image:
