This post is long overdue. But I am one who functions on feeling and energy and the universe's directions, and the universe hadn't directed me to do it until now. This shoot happened at the end of August in Connecticut with my amazingly creative and inspirational sister-in-law, Ally Davis. Ally is a graduate of the New School in New York City. She studied dance, and is currently in the process of building her very own dance company, Visceral Movement.
I asked Ally if she wanted to do this shoot with me, as I had been developing an idea for a photography project called 'The Beautiful Woman Project' which is a project focused on exposing the raw, undecorated beauty of women by photographing them without makeup on. I had this whole beautiful end of summer scenario in mind, and her being a dancer just added to the wild, imaginative, dream-like surrealism of the story; what happens when two creative mommies who have such limited time to themselves, leave the house at 7 am on a sunday morning to get into a field as the sun is rising with flowy dresses and dew drops on the grass??? Well, magic of course. I mean, it couldn't have been a more perfect shoot for launching my project.
But then what you ask? Well, life. A major lack of personal time. Finding out that our home was contaminated with mold and we had to move out. It has now been over 6 months and we are still not back.. (although we will be able to get back in within the next couple of weeks!! woo hoooo!). So I was waiting. I was waiting for the perfect time, the perfect moment, the perfect platform to share this project that is very very dear to my heart. The thing is though, sometimes that perfect time we are waiting for doesn't come.
I have always had the intention of sharing these beautiful images, but it wasn't until this past week when Ally shared one of them on her instagram, that she and I started talking about our next collaboration and I remembered how incredibly liberating and creatively invigorating that morning was this past August with her. We were free as birds, wild children.. not another soul in sight. It was just her and me and my camera and the warm warm sunrise. I remember her thanking me after we finished, because she had been feeling a lack of inspiration recently and she just felt so good afterwards. And of course, I thanked her because I was feeling the very same way.
I was asked recently by my friend, Allie O'Conner(co-blogger at Little Red's Well), my thoughts on creativity, as they are in the process of doing a 50 day creativity challenge (#scratchfor50). This thing that we are all blessed with, creativity, it's a gift. It's a delicate gift that needs to be acknowledged, nurtured, and respected. And when we give it these things, what it gives back to us is nothing short of magic.
So, I have been waiting to post these images to my blog talking about the beautiful woman project, but in the last twenty-four hours, I have realized that instead, I want to share them as what they are to me today, which is a reminder of what can happen if you let the magic in.
