Fine Art Photo Series Honors Women for International Women's Day [NSFW]

What started as an innocuous trip to the craft store ended with myself and a model sitting in my studio with tears running down our faces. I shouldn’t say that it ended there, though, because the first session of A Woman’s Soul was only the beginning of a month-long process of emotional vulnerability, bravery, and change.

When I first saw the little dollhouse windows in the craft store, I thought that they were cute little things and that they were just about the perfect size to fit on someone’s chest. Then I went about my business, bought my supplies, and left the store. The thought wouldn’t go away, though, and I found myself thinking about the possibilities during the next few weeks and months.

I realized, toward the end of 2017, that I was nearing a turning point in my work. The desire to create art that had meaning, that would impact, touch, and connect with other people had fundamentally altered not only what I wanted to create, but how I wanted to create it. Embracing this change, I turned to the idea of the window.

They say that eyes are the window to the soul, but if someone actually had a metaphorical window in their chest, what would you see inside? Well, I thought, you’d probably see what affected them most; you’d see the marks of something that had a powerful impact on their inside being. At that moment, my fine art project, A Woman’s Soul, was born.

Having worked with models for years, my first instinct was to find professionals who would be used to the process and comfortable posing nude from the waist up. I quickly realized, though, that taking that route would be antithetical to the very purpose of the series. My intention was for the image creation and the final photographs themselves to be as raw and vulnerable in-purpose as possible—with the story being the important part—and that meant things very common in my work: carefully sculpted light, a skilled team of hair and makeup artists, and a carefully chosen model, would need to be altered. I decided to forego any alteration to the subject on my part—however the subject showed up was how I would photograph her—and decided I would use only volunteers who felt a deep connection to the series, as well as using very simple light and posing. The last thing I wanted people to do was look at the photograph and say, "that's beautiful light!" because it would distract from the true purpose: story. The series should focus on story above all.

When I began looking for volunteers, I let them choose from a list of metaphors I had created for each window. I gave no instruction other than to ask them to choose whichever they felt the most connected with, and asked whether they would be willing to share a bit of their story so that I would have a good idea why the metaphor they chose was a good fit. As soon as they started choosing and sharing the reasons behind their choices, I realized that this project was going to be much more profound and much more emotionally demanding, than I first suspected.

Rape. Abuse. Neglect. Betrayal. Hope. Belief. Love. Empathy. Death. Every woman had story that was tied deeply to her sense of self; not only to who she had been, but to who she was becoming. During each session, they bravely shared their full story with me, often spending much of the session in tears. In every case, almost as soon as the window I’d designed was affixed to their chests, emotion began to break the surface. To these women, there was something incredibly powerful about wearing the symbol of their stories on their skin. They bared their souls to me, and I had to be there to meet them emotionally, open and vulnerable so they would feel safe reliving their pain and sharing their hopes for the future growth that pain stimulated in their lives.

I don’t mind saying that, after the first few sessions, I was emotionally drained. I was sharing these women’s stories and being entrusted with their truths, and the pressure of knowing that I had to do them justice was staggering. This was a much bigger responsibility than making something pretty. I had to make something true, and I was suddenly afraid that I would let these brave women down.

Having purposefully taken such a large departure from the work and style I was used to forced me far outside my comfort zone, and while the fear of failure was—and is—incredibly real, the pain of the process was a strange part of the price I paid for the honor of being allowed to create the series.

Now that that the project is finished, and I see it in it’s entirety, I can’t help but feel humbled and grateful that these seven women were brave enough to volunteer, and that they trusted me enough share their stories through my lens. I’m both honored, and in awe of each of these women, and I hope that viewers see in these souls a reflection of their own stories.

 What we created together is a peek into A Woman’s Soul: rebirth, social anxiety, love that hurts, self-neglect, finding freedom, selflessness, and a universe within.

Unique women.

Unique stories.

Unique souls.  

Universal truths.