Liz

Everyone we meet in our lives, we meet for one reason or another. But there are a select few people that truly change our lives for the better. Liz is one of those people. Liz came into my life by what felt like pure coincidence. One day she put out a post on a Facebook photo group looking for a second photographer for a wedding. I clicked on her Facebook profile to learn more about how my e-mail to her could stand out and I saw that we had a mutual friend that I went to highschool with. We met-up for coffee and then proceeded to shoot weddings together for about three years. To both of our surprise, we had so much more in common than we realized at that moment.

We adventured around Virginia photographing weddings to photographing the most incredible Chicago wedding (where we also found this cool church and did a fairy-tale shoot of each other). Liz now lives in California and I live in Colorado. It’s funny how much can change in a few years, yet stay the same.

Another funny thing about this image is that it took me 4 years to make it and a year to ship her a print. In 2012 I had the opportunity to do a glamour portrait shoot for Liz. I later watched a CreativeLIVE course on “Experimental Portraits” by Sue Bryce and Lara Jade. I knew that I wanted to give Liz a meaningful gift so I used what I learned in that class to create this creative portrait.

Whenever I think of glamour portraiture, I think of flowers, nature, flowy and an almost ethereal feeling. I wanted to convey that in this image as well as a sense of her being “of” nature and all of the beauty that nature represents.

I used images that I had taken while visiting the International Rose Test Garden in Portland Oregon, England, my mom’s flowers and here in Colorado. “Intrepid” (my favorite little chipmunk that lived under my parents’ deck in Virginia) even made into this image.

In addition, I chose to add some of my own personal drawings to her skin.

It was such an incredible feeling to finally mail her a printed copy of this image (5 years later…). Liz is one of those people that no matter how much time goes by without speaking to her, meeting her again feels like we never stopped talking to each other. She has an adventurous heart and is incredibly caring. Liz is an entrepreneur and will never settle for just anything. I love that about her. Liz, thank you for being such a large part of my life and becoming one of my dearest friends. I love you SS and can’t wait for our next adventure together.

Thank you for reading. Who has changed your life?

Follow Liz’s incredible adventures on Instagram here

Music: Music: “Naive” by Sergey Cheremisinov