International Women's Day 2022

How proud I am to serve and encourage women. To remind them of their voice, their possibilities.

March is when we celebrate International Women’s Day. And as I look at the faces of just some of the women I have been privileged to photograph over the years, I am in awe of the beauty seen in various stories that weave together a sweet reminder of how proud I am to be a woman.

Images | Heartbox Photography

#InternationalWomensDay2022

A Celebration of Black Excellence | Black History Month 2021

“We've learned that quiet isn't always peace

And the norms and notions

of what just is

Isn't always justice

And yet the dawn is ours

before we knew it

Somehow we do it

Somehow we've weathered and witnessed

a nation that isn't broken

but simply unfinished

We the successors of a country and a time

Where a skinny Black girl

descended from slaves and raised by a single mother

can dream of becoming president

only to find herself reciting for one

And yes we are far from polished

far from pristine

but that doesn't mean we are

striving to form a union that is perfect

We are striving to forge a union with purpose”

***

-Amanda Gorman

Excerpt from 2021 inaugural poem “The Hill We Climb”

Images | Heartbox Photography

What Would You Say to Your Younger Self?

Hey, ladies.

If you could face your younger self now, in the form of that teenaged girl growing up and learning life, what would you tell her? 

What would you say about self-confidence? About womanhood?

What would you say about outward and inward beauty? 

About love? About mistakes? 

What would you tell her about flying…and about the moments we fall down in life? 

I think that portraits are some of the best ways you can show your teenaged girls that life is already happening NOW. That it’s important, especially for young girls growing into womanhood, to see that it is more than ok, dare I even say, necessary, to see the value in existing in portraits, to capture where they are in life now. 

Not to wait until they feel “worthy”.

Not when they achieve society’s definition of what is “beautiful”. 

Not when they achieve x, y, or z. 

And certainly not when have earned the approval of other people. 

But now. Just as they are.

So that when it comes time for them to look back at those photographs of their younger selves, they can smile in remembering who they were becoming in that image. They can smile remembering that someone advocated for them and told them that they absolutely are worthy to capture in a photograph, even if they are still learning and trying to understand their life, awkwardness and all.

It is a joy to be able to capture young adults in photographs. 

**

ANNOUNCEMENT FOR SUMMER!

Whether they are entering in as seniors in high school or have just begun their teenage years, we are now booking for outdoor photo sessions this summer!

I  invite you to book that appointment for the young adults in your life, whether they are your own children, your nieces, your god-children, whatever the case may be. 

Encourage them to exist in photographs. 

Because their life is worth capturing in images today and these images are a part of their unique story.

#existinphotographs #teenagers #seniorphotography #heartboxphotography #seniorportraits #sanjosephotographer

#classof2021 #seniorphotos