I first met Misty at my friend Tara’s event. Tara was a mother that I met in an outreach group for new moms when my daughter was born. Something Tara noticed amongst a lot of her friends who were moms is that not a lot of time was created for us to get out and celebrate just being us. So part of her present to herself each year was something she deemed a “girls night out”, but in reality, was a whole to-do. She invited her friends to come dressed to the 9s, rented out a space like a small hall or hotel suite, invited hair and makeup artists, ran a small bar, invited photographers in, and just let us all celebrate being ourselves. There was a ticket price and a photographer price and a hair and makeup price, so it’s something that was a bit on the pricier side, but it gave us all a reason to be out, and a reason to feel amazing.
Misty was one of the photographers to come to one of these events and she started kind of documenting how we felt and why we came. We friended each other on Facebook, and when she was looking for someone to manage her camera for video at a night of burlesque, I had no idea what I was volunteering for. Just that I was out to try every little thing I could to learn what kind of photographer I wanted to be. That was late 2017, a few months before this shoot. But in that time, the warmth of the burlesque community has made me feel at home, and their challenges to prejudice we walk with every day has had me breaking down who I am and rebuilding for the better.
Misty and I went to a local beach called French Beach and she allowed me to play and shoot and she modeled. This shoot has sparked a deep love for outdoor imagery and women taking power in all spaces.
