When I was doing my last CreativeLive class I had the honor of spending time with the 9 in-studio audience members, both on set and off. Each day we would go out to dinner, shoot, and talk while building memories together. This is the stuff I live for.

While shooting on the eve of the first day, we gathered in our hotel meeting space. A boring room with boring lighting and boring furniture. Nonetheless, I was determined to kick off the shooting by taking a self-portrait of myself laying on a table, to later composite on top of a giant mushroom.

Soon everyone started shooting, taking their cameras out and snapping a few shots here and there. I offered myself up as a subject to get the ball rolling, and in no time I found myself balancing on a chair, being suffocated in fabric, and posing for the picture you see above.

The person who took it, Beth Olson, also took another on the last day of our class. There is a stark difference between the two, and in the most perfect way possible, she captured the two sides of how I feel…perhaps without realizing it, or perhaps she did. In the top image I am fragile and contemplative, and in the next I am curious and imaginative. That is me, inside and out. Shy, daydreamer, fragile, imaginative…all of these things rolled into two images.

Isn’t it so amazing how an image can capture something so true about a person. I take many self-portraits, and as a result I feel that I know myself very well. I understand what makes me who I am, and I often try to capture a part of that in an image. But when someone else steps in to take a few shots, and they get it so exactly right, I can’t help but smile and nod. That’s me.

Thank you Beth and everyone else who shared in our beautiful adventures those few days. The photos that resulted are wonderful and I am grateful to have been a part of it.