Pascaline wants to be a costume fashion designer someday.  She finished her first dress this year with her grandma’s help.  The dress turned out beautiful.  It has a gold embroidery overlay for the skirt made from fabric she found in Thailand.  I told her we had to do a photo shoot to celebrate her first dress being finished.  But I had no idea this would be the most important photo shoot I’ve ever done.

I’ve photographed my daughter since she was a baby.  She’s used to being in front of the camera.  But over the last couple years, Pascaline has shied away from the camera like most tweens and teens often do.  With hormonal changes, battles with blemishes, navigating friendships, feeling all your insecurities rise to their greatest height, and trying to keep your chin up…it’s not an easy season of life.

I wanted to walk her through this photo shoot just like I had walked countless women through the fear of being photographed.

I asked her to start by turning at an angle and gently holding her hands behind her back.  I asked her for a soft smile without showing any teeth.  She wasn’t sure where her mom was going with this, but thank goodness she trusts me with a camera. 🙂  I wanted to capture her confidence, the deep rooted confidence she was gifted with from the moment she took her first breath.

Pascaline has watched me get excited doing photo shoots.  She’s seen her mama light up and jump up and down, when the shots are turning out even better than I could imagine.  But this time, she was on the receiving end.  I was getting excited about HER.  And I slowly watched her fears and insecurities fade away as her beauty unfolded.

We were having so much fun that I had her change into one of her favorite dresses–a beautiful piece she found in Italy last year.

I took a moment to show her some of the shots I was getting.  Her eyes widened, and she looked at me almost in shock.  “Is that really me?  Is my smile really that beautiful?”

Everything in me wanted to cry.  Her question was so genuine, raw and exposing.

“Yes baby.  That’s you.  You really are that beautiful.”

When she asked me that single question “Is my smile really that beautiful?”  I felt as if I’d worked to master photography for the purpose of this one photo shoot.  This was the most important photo shoot I’d ever done.

I asked her to turn, sway, and lift her arms like a bird who is gliding.  And I waited for her to catch the light so she could see how much she radiates femininity.

I asked her to slowly walk toward me with arms outstretched, gently brushing over the tall grass.  I shot every photo with a wide open aperture at f/1.8 because I wanted the world around her to be dreamy in blur and magical in light.

I asked her to slowly walk away from me and look up into the trees.  I wanted to capture her endless sense of wonder and curiosity.

More than a few times, she took my breath away.  I had to pause and take in this beautiful young woman looking back at me.

When she was four years old, she loved to dance in princess skirts and dresses.  A framed portrait of this moment hangs in our home because I never want to forget her dancing in the morning light.

Ten years later she still loves dancing in the light.

As a professional photographer, I’ve learned one powerful truth in working with all the different types of people I’ve photographed over the years.  Everyone, whether they are a mom of young children, a bride on her wedding day, teenager, and even professional model, are afraid of the same thing.   We all fear that when the camera is pointed at us, it will capture all the things we don’t like about ourselves. We desire to be confident in front of a camera, but we don’t know how to obtain it.  This is the role of a photographer.  My mission with my camera is to capture the depth of how beautiful the human spirit is so my subjects not only love what they physically see of themselves, but they also see how radiant their spirit is within.

When Pascaline and I trekked out into the open field on a hot summer, Texas-heat type of day,  I knew we wanted beautiful photos of her first dress.  But I didn’t realize how deeply she needed to see the beauty of her spirit, her smile, her unfolding femininity.  Something in her shifted that day.

A lightness has replaced a heaviness.

There is no question that this was the most important photo shoot I’ve ever done.

(I love you baby.  Always, mama)