This project.
This personal, emotional, heartfelt, labor of love.
I have been working on these images since 2019, and if I am being honest I was working on this project long before I even realized it. I have unintentionally created a career in photography photographing women. I think that we are the strongest, bravest, most powerful people on the planet, and I have spent years focusing my work on the stories of women I respect and admire. I think that we are complex and layered and deep and so resilient. It has always felt important for me to make women feel seen for all the love, strength and beauty we bring to the world in ways that only we can.
Almost 2 years ago I was having a conversation with friends about learning to let go of all the things that make us love ourselves less and the freedom that comes with that kind of release. For me, and for so many of us, self-love is ongoing work. I have criticized every part of my body: from my non-existent ass, my small chin, my big nose, to my fluctuating weight. All the wishing “if only-I-had’s” or “I-wish-I-was” convincing me people must be lying if they say I’m pretty, because some days it just feels harder to love all the imperfect parts. Learning to live with myself in kindness and gratitude is not always easy. I asked a diverse group of women to allow me to photograph them in the ways that they see themselves, in the ways that they are most comfortable. I wanted to see what self-love and acceptance looked like to people with different experiences, stories, ages and lives. They became the creative directors of their shoots. We focused on an experience or a feature they loved, or how they felt their best. There were no right or wrong answers. Some ideas of self-love changed with motherhood, with heartbreak, a shift in health or with moving forward. I began shooting this project with ideas for what I wanted it to be and then 2020 happened, and plans changed.
Our lives changed.
We changed.
While I had all this beautiful work, I was unsure if after a world-wide pandemic and a year in lockdown if this all felt as relevant as it did before because everything felt so different. So much happens in a year so I decided to photograph some of these women again in 2021…after a year of change.
This project is a celebration of art and women, their resilience and all the things that make us so human and so connected.
“girls with mirrors” is finally out in the world… as a whole…in its entirety.
I can’t thank you all enough for sharing your hearts with me. I will forever be grateful that there are women like you in the world, so vulnerable and so strong and so fucking beautiful.
