Day 65: Finding Your Confidence

How do y'all put up with me? I'm pretty scatter brained. I didn't even finish the Carnival shoot because I skipped Friday & Saturday. Then I got all excited about the MohkaLIFE shoot that I went ahead and posted that one on Sunday.

BUT, as promised, I will show you some behind the scenes into the process of the "blue" photo.

This particular session was the last of the day. Medhini was tired and the poor girl endured a full day of direction, requests, and worst of all -- dressing up! Energy was getting low and her face was beginning to show it. I had to find inspiration somewhere. We (Nagib & Nadia) began to throw out ideas and suggestions, but they weren't working. Finally, we knew what would rouse an emotion out of her: "Medhini, why don't you portray how you feel about this shoot? How much you dislike being made up?" Clearly this did not mean portray "anger," but it allowed her to be playful without feeling self conscious about what might look 'fashion-y' or sexy or stylish.

And then there's the addition of props, which in my case is the fabric she's playing with. The more we goofed around, the more expressive her face became. It went from goofy, to playful, to captivating.

We started with just throwing this up in the air:



Then we thought, screw it


Who needs to look fashion-y?!



Which lead to this (see the confidence growing?)



To this


And then you know what this one lead to:



Yep. The final photo. And she clearly wasn't being goofy. The difference? Her confidence. She wasn't connecting with fake scenarios. Allowing her to express something so playful enabled her to feel more comfortable and less pressured to get an amazing photo. I titled this post "finding your confidence" because all photography aside, we come across this scenario in life plenty of times. I struggle with this all the time as a photographer, partner, and individual. So while the model in front of me was finding inspiration, there was a small part of me that was doing the same.

Medhini is beautiful, but she is a student and not a model. I have learned so much working with MohkaLIFE, and it has absolutely tested me. I'm hungry for more and am so anxious to keep growing. And every once in a while, my camera will love me back ;)

I'll miss you Atlanta! Here's to my last few weeks left here...

"Familiarity is a magician that is cruel to beauty but kind to ugliness." --Maria Louise Rame, romantic nineteenth-century novelist.
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To participate in my 100 day challenge, submit your photo representing your interpretation of "feminine" and about a paragraph describing your interpretation to alejandra@imaginaledesign.com -- Read more about it here.