Acorn Fest 2025 @ the Little River Land Trust + the Possibility Alliance, Belfast, Maine
Earlier this October, I got to accompany Maggie Ruth Haaland to New England Acorn Co-operative’s 9th Annual Acorn Fest at the Little River Land Trust and the Possibility Alliance in Belfast, Maine.
It was a beautiful day full of nature, community connection, exploration and experimentation.
think:
acorn harvesting, cracking, and processing demos
acorn ink, collective dreaming, and an acorn dye pot station led by Maggie
a guided forest walk
a buffet of foods made with acorns
information and local resources to learn more about acorns, oaks, and things like green burials
announcements about local groups and events, including ways to support some of the most vulnerable people and groups in the area.
My body felt so nourished by it all! What a gift to be a part of it, and to document it with my camera. Sharing the photos below!
Embodied Self-Portraits x Interactive Quilt Wall
This weekend was a beautiful moment of several visions I’ve been holding being brought to life!
One was the vision Maggie Ruth Haaland and I have long been dreaming into for an event on my patio that created a soft space to share our art and invite community connection, rest, mutual aid, and reflection with the support of live music from our talented pals, herbal footbaths and gluten free baked goods made by Maggie, and dahlias grown by local pals. You can learn more about it and see more pictures from the event here.
The other was a vision I’ve had of a wall with re-arrangeable panels, to be used for embodied portraiture. I’ve gotten really into the power of physically, intuitively re-arranging things, and often lead my 1:1 clients in the practice. JPOS felt like the perfect time to bring this wall into being - this time with quilted naturally dyed and cyanotype wall panels that Maggie and I collaborated on!
It ended up making the most sense to let the portraits in front of the interactive quilt wall be a self-guided prompt for JPOS, though I’m looking forward to offering facilitated mini embodied portraiture sessions using the quilt wall this weekend.
When I was preparing for JPOS, my wonderful business coach Dana invited me to make sure I spent some time making my own self-portraits in front of the interactive quilt wall. Self-portraits are one of my favorite ways to connect with and express myself, and I really appreciated the reminder - it’s so easy to forget in the busy-ness of prepping for an event!
So, the day after JPOS, I did take some time to re-arrange the wall and make some of my own playful, intuitive, embodied self-portraits. I wanted to share them with you here! Scroll through below. You can check out my embodied portraiture offerings here.
late summer adventures with maggie ruth haaland
Today I wanted to share some of the photos I made on some recent adventures from one of my dearest people, Maggie Ruth Haaland.
We spent time at the Ipswich River Wildlife Sanctuary in Topsfield, MA + down on the Cape over the past week or so, and I brought my little fuji x100v along with me.
I used to be a full time photographer before experiencing a deeply disabling CPTSD burnout in 2017/18. I’ve been slowly recovering as I’ve found effective CPTSD support and care + as I’ve had the time and support I’ve needed to create a solid inner foundation.
It’s felt really significant to be making photos again this year in ways that feel sustainable. And so beautiful and meaningful to find that the spark that led me to photography in the first place is still there ✨
I’ll be starting to offer embodied portraiture talisman sessions + documentary-style (day-in-the-life) family sessions again this fall. I’m working on getting things set up on my website, so for now, send me an email (info@emily-tebbetts.com) if you’d like more info!
Thanks for being here!
Em
they/them
Somatic Guide + Facilitator | Process-based Artist
instagram || 1:1 somatic tarot integration sessions
Embodied Human Design Readings
embodied portraiture talisman sessions + documentary-style (day-in-the-life) family sessions
jordan mudd || embodied portraiture talisman session at home in jamaica plain, ma
jordan is embodying transformation || listening || breaking || surrender
Last week, I had the pleasure of doing a mini Embodied Portraiture Talisman Session with my dear friend and fellow grief tender, Jordan Mudd.
Jordan is a musical facilitator, community songwriter, ritualist, prayerful activist, and grief tender whose life work is to use song as a tool for personal, collective, and spiritual liberation. He co-facilitates regular singing circles in Jamaica Plain and Somerville with his collaborator Milly - a beautifully rich and growing community that I’ve deeply appreciated being a part of over the past couple of years.
We got together for a mini Embodied Portraiture Talisman Session as he moved into a new space, with dreams of facilitating small group rituals and seeing clients 1:1 there.
As we began our session, I guided Jordan through some practices to connect with his body, heart, and spirit. From that place I asked what he’d like more access to embodying in this season of life.
Jordan’s words were transformation, listening, breaking, and surrender.
From there, I lead him through some practices to support him in connecting more deeply with + embodying that energy. From that place, we made these portraits.
Embodied Portraiture Talisman Sessions are not about appearance. They’re about mindfully engaging in the power of being witnessed/witnessing yourself your genuine embodiment of the energy you’re wanting more access to. These portraits are meant to be made into a talisman of sorts - to be decorated and placed somewhere where it can be seen and connected with daily.
These talismans become a powerful somatic spell, offering a kind of easeful repetition that helps to strengthen your neural pathways across a variety of circumstances each time you look at and connect with them. This makes it physically more easeful for your body to access and integrate this energy - a trusty companion offering bread for the journey as you navigate the season of life you’re in.
See the full gallery below (polaroids at the end!) -
polaroids
Want to make some magic together? Sign up here to hear when Embodied Portraiture Talisman sessions are open.
Thanks for being here!
Em
they/them
Somatic Guide + Facilitator | Process-based Artist
maddie lam || embodied portraiture at the arnold arboretum in jamaica plain, boston, ma
Once upon a time, I was a full-time wedding, portrait, and family photographer.
Before that, I was a kid, then a teen, with a camera.
Photography was my first real love. Through a camera, I was always noticing and attuning to beauty, to presence, to nature, to human connection. Access to appreciating it, documenting it, sharing it and connecting with others about it came with the click of the shutter, over and over again.
I didn’t know back then that I was living with CPTSD.
Now, as a somatic coach and with 8 years of reckoning with + (ongoing) healing from CPTSD (including a wholeeee lot of losing everything, rebuilding, and repeating that cycle a few times over), I can see how much photography gave me. What a lifeline it was for me.
And why I ultimately burned out so badly as a photographer back in 2017, starting my journey with learning about and beginning to heal from developmental, complex, and chronic trauma.
That’s a story for another time.
For now, I’ll share that I’ve been slowly dipping my toes back into photography over the past year or two - slowly, carefully, in fits and starts. My body gave me no choice but to be careful and slow with how I’ve rebuilt my relationship with it, finding what’s right-sized, letting it all develop in its own time. I really struggled with it as it was happening. Now, I’m grateful that it took the exact path that it did.
Since training as an integrative change work coach in 2023 (a modality through which I practice somatic and embodiment work), the dream of offering a particular type of embodied portraiture sessions has consistently been tapping on my window.
It’s taken a long time for me to be ready to explore it. In July, the time had come.
I asked my friend Maddie Lam, an incredible musician, body worker, and birth doula who’s focused on helping people release trauma from their bodies, if she would help me explore this offering as I experimented with how I wanted to shape it.
Together, we went to the arnold arboretum in jamaica plain to play with this concept and see what might emerge…
I asked Maddie to come with a word or feeling or two that she wanted to embody for this session. Her words were
Activation + Self-Trust.
I did some facilitation to support her in dropping into the energy of activation and self-trust, and we let things flow from there - Maddie embodying the energy of activation and self-trust, and me and my camera, witnessing and documenting it all.
The part I’m most excited about comes after - a gallery photographs that can be printed, decorated, and hung around her home as talismans.
Reminders of her intentions, neural-pathway-strengthening portals into embodying that energy more often in her daily life. I’m forever geeking out about the magic we can make together, the way we can create and relate in ways that support us toward liberation, toward loving and expressing ourselves and one another with more of us.
See the gallery below -
Want to make some magic together? Sign up here to hear when Embodied Portraiture Talisman sessions are open.
I’d love to make magic with you. Sign up here to hear when Embodied Portraiture Talisman sessions are open.
Thanks for being here!
Em
they/them
Somatic Guide + Facilitator | Process-based Artist
Birthday Reflections + New Intuitive Oil Pastel Piece
❤️🔥 34 ❤️🔥
Last week I turned 34. That same day, I also finished this giant intuitive oil pastel piece I’ve been working on for the first 10 days of July.
It was a totally intuitive, emergent piece- as most of my art is these days.
It reminded me of having a puzzle around. I’d go over and spend a little time working on a new layer, a new section. Then I’d bee bop around to something else until the painting called me back again for the next layer.
This was the most “high stakes” piece I’ve gone fully intuitive on.
It was so interesting to watch the initial preciousness and hesitation give way to delight, aliveness, and a sense of falling more deeply in love with my own heart, spirit, and self-expression with each new intuitive layer - each new risk taken to trust myself and trust the process.
It felt so right to finish it today and bring it in to my birthday self portraits.
I feel so grateful for where my life path has led me.
For the many, many heart- and soul- aligned intuitive risks 33 year old me took, and where those risks have taken me in relationship with myself, with life, with loved ones.
For the juicy depths of belonging, trust, creativity, perspective, faith, and a commitment to a different kind of quality of life - a life with room for the fullness of ME, as a multidimensional, sensitive, messy human being - that these risks have allowed me to bask in and be nourished by.
Each year of life I learn so much more about what’s possible in relationship with myself, with loved ones, with my community, with my art, with the interconnected web of all things.
Each year I learn and experience so much more about the nature of love, grace, creativity, and courage.
What a gift, what a gift!
Thank you for being here, for witnessing me in what I share of myself on the good old World Wide Web.
I am so grateful to be alive, to be here, to be forever growing in my capacity to honor the fullness of myself and the fullness of the people + beings around me at the same time, and to get to experience all the delicious flavors of connection that allows.
Thank you 33. Here’s to a new year of exploration and adventure ❤️🔥
Swipe through below to see process photos!
Thanks for being here!
Em
|| fine art print shop || embodied human design readings ||
|| somatic tarot integration sessions || current offerings ||
Practicing Rest at World’s End with Maggie + Frug
Maggie, Frug and I made our way to World’s End in Hingham yesterday.
Ohhh what a gift it is to be by the sea, no one in sight but the three of us, birds calling and tiny waves lapping quietly around us.
We spent some time connecting and preparing for the Community Rest Ritual we’re co-facilitating at JP Centre Yoga on Saturday, slowing down for long moments of rest and connection ourselves.
Speaking of rest, I’m being called to a slow evening re-connecting with my body and my heart. So I’ll pause the words here and leave you with the gallery.
First, a photo Maggie took of me taking a few minutes to get really quiet and just listen to the soundscape + connect with the texture and temperature of the pebbles beneath me.
Then, some photos from my lil camera companion. I’ve been surprising myself with how much I’m enjoying photography again lately. My first love! It brings my eyes sooo much pleasure to just pour over the photos once I get home and edit them. SO SATISFYING!!!
Hope you get even a tenth of the pleasure and delight and yummies that I get from them - may they be a nourishing pour into your cup!
Thanks for being here!
em
newsletter || work with me 1:1 || art || upcoming offerings || instagram
To stay in the loop about future Queer Somatic Nature Walks + Embodied Journaling workshops, sign up via email here, or join the whatsapp group here.
newsletter || work with me 1:1 || art || upcoming offerings || instagram
To stay in the loop about future Queer Somatic Nature Walks + Embodied Journaling workshops, sign up via email here, or join the whatsapp group here.
3/16 Queer Somatic Nature Walk by the creek + rhododendrons @ the Arb
I wanted to share some sweet scenes from this past weekend’s Queer Somatic Nature Walk + Embodied Journaling workshop by the creek and rhododendrons at the Arnold Arboretum in Jamaica Plain.
This was the first one of 2025, inspired on a whim by looking at the forecast and seeing it’d be 65 degrees that Sunday.
It felt so special to get together with this sweet crew and be present with this beautiful land and water, our senses, ourselves, and one another on a beautiful, warm (almost) spring day.
I always feel so nourished by hearing about what people are noticing when they get a chance to slow down and enjoy connecting with nature through their senses, and I love hearing the reflections that come through journaling as folks connect with their inner wisdom + the land around them.
A reminder that our bodies hold so much wisdom! We are rich in so many ways when we cultivate space to connect ourselves + the beings around us, and especially when we then share that with one another.
Truly cannot think of another way I’d rather spend my afternoon - I’ve been basing in giddy gratitude about how much I love the work I do!
If you’d like to be kept in the loop about future Queer Somatic Nature Walks + Embodied Journaling workshops, sign up via email here, or join the whatsapp group here.
To stay in the loop about future Queer Somatic Nature Walks + Embodied Journaling workshops, sign up via email here, or join the whatsapp group here.
Thanks for being here!
em
newsletter || work with me 1:1 || art || upcoming offerings || instagram
coastal adventuring with frug + maggie
A change of plans and some time spent exploring a path through the coastal landscape in Quincy.
I’ve been missing the ocean dearly lately. Exploring coastal landscapes just does something good for my spirit, especially when I get to do it with my loved ones (and/or frug).
I went a little too long without filling that particular cup this winter, so when Maggie invited me for a last minute walk near the Quincy coast, frug and I eagerly drove down to meet them.
We didn’t find the trail we were looking for, but we did get to have a little adventure, exploring this marshy bit of land, watching the wind blow the grass and throwing oyster shells into the mud, watching them land with a satisfying thuck.
romancing myself: artist date with the camellias at the lyman estate greenhouses
Oooh what a delight it is to share these photos with you (full gallery after my musings)! These are so so yummy to my eyes and bring up a warm swelling in my heart.
My eyes have been craving flowers lately. I literally feel it as this yearning reaching coming from my eyes and my heart.
This is a familiar feeling for me, this time of year. Winter always seems to leave me feeling thirsty for green, for color, for the kinds of beauty and aliveness I feel most inspired by.
I’m on my third week of The Artist’s Way (well, really, it’s a mix of TAW + Living the Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron’s newest book), and I’m just now picking up my weekly artist dates with intentionality.
A series of starts and stops and surrendering left me with a free Saturday afternoon, a body in need of time to process, and the information that the Lyman Estate Greenhouses have camellias that bloom this time of year.
Learning about the camellias was a sweet synchronicity - normally I visit the camellias, one of my favorite flowers, on St Simons Island, GA.
There, they bloom in February, generous red and pink and white blossoms dotting the lower layer of the live oak and spanish moss canopy that shades the cemetery where I visit my mother’s grave.
This year, with the political climate around transness so soon after T’s inauguration, an X on my license, and looking more visibly queer and gender non-conforming than ever, I didn’t feel comfortable traveling there. A first time, and a heartbreak.
I’ve missed my time on the island dearly.
I can feel the absence of that mid-winter fill up on connection with the camellias, the ocean, the live oaks. With the warm sun on my winter skin and the salt air in my nose. Ocean sunrises and sunsets, bird watching, shifting sand patterns, and crispy crinkle cut french fries from Frosty’s, all just a quick bike ride away, waiting to be delighted in and devoured.
So when I learned that the camellias were in bloom, it felt like a gift for my grief and longing. A chance to connect with my beloved camellias, all the way from up here in Boston.
I got there in the afternoon and moved slowly through the green houses, letting my eyes soak in all the beauty and color and aliveness. How good it was to have this time with nature and my camera!
After many years of disconnect from photography following a disabling burnout that I’m still recovering from, it’s been this incredible, tender gift to get to start rediscovering all that I love about it. To remember that I love spending time with myself and my camera this way! Taking my time, appreciating and reveling in the beauty of it all, going just as slow as I’d like to and taking it all in.
After the greenhouse, I made my way to Mahoney’s on a whim. Along the way I saw a farm store with a bunch of cars parked outside and followed a ping to stop there. I left with an abundance of fresh flowers, homemade pumpkin and squash ravioli, and some apple cider donuts.
Upon returning home, I’m happy to report that my apartment is starting to fill with fresh cut flowers again… tulips and daffs and hellebores splashing color across my dining room table. Pleasure and beauty and bread for the journey every time I pass them.
((((((( may these photos act as a nurturing portal as you spend time taking them in ))))))
thanks for being here!
em
newsletter || work with me 1:1 || art || upcoming offerings || instagram
\\ full gallery below - tap and swipe to go through larger photos one by one//
Big news: I’m moving! I’d love community support in finding my next home.
I originally shared this in my January newsletter, and I wanted to give it a place to live where I could share it easily.
I started the year off with some big news - my current home will no longer be available for renting, so I'll be moving sometime in the next 6 months.
This is big big news for my nervous system that I'm still taking in and stabilizing around, especially because it's coincided with news of some of my dearest local pals moving far away in the coming months too.
Fear, grief, heartache, confusion have made their presence well known this month. It's been tough, and it's been pretty cool to watch the ways I'm able to be with these big big feelings differently than at any other time in my life.
And, I feel hopeful - I've been sensing that life is calling me into a new chapter, and I'm curious and excited to see what it is and who will be a part of it.
Here's a cyanotype I made while I was processing all the feelings that came up with this news + all that's happening in the world right now (particularly witnessing the impacts of all forms of extraction and supremacy culture happening globally right now):
What will this mean for me? I'm not sure. Maybe a 1-3 month stay somewhere new this summer as a DIY artist residency? Do you know someone with a cool place to stay? Especially somewhere in nature? Should I rent a place and invite folks in for their own artist residencies + lead a retreat or two there?
Or maybe directly into a new place, here in JP/Rozzie, or possibly western mass (Easthampton area perhaps?), Portland Maine, Providence RI...
I would love to stay in JP for another rental cycle or two if it happens with ease.
Preferably in a shared home with other queer artists/healers/nature lovers who want to occasionally collaborate on community-oriented offerings. Possibly finding an apartment/house to start our own co-op?
Some details:
I have 2 cats and a dog who love to hang out and be loved on by housemates, so I'll need a pet-friendly place.
I'm in a vulnerable place and feeling a bit exposed - I'm still recovering financially from years of disabling burnout, CPTSD treatment, and a divorce during the pandemic.
I have a co-signer but I'm transitioning from living off of savings from a previous business to building a sustainable income through my current art, facilitation, and somatic support practice. I'd really love to be invited into a space that is open and supportive about the position I'm in.
I'm at a really beautiful point in my process of post traumatic recovery and growth (and business growth!), and looking to surround myself with people who believe in me -especially at my most vulnerable- and take pleasure in investing in my growth and my thriving.
If you have any connections (to places to live or people looking for something similar), I would love to receive them! :)
In the meantime, I've been doing my best to savor my remaining time in my current home. I've been re-exploring my relationship with photography - it's taken a long time, but I found a camera that feels just right for me right now, and I've been taking it with me on my daily walks with fruggi girl (my dog).
It's been such a gift to live so close to the arboretum these past two and a half years. Here are a few photos, more on my instagram.
Brookwood Community Farm - Folk on the Farm Event || Canton, Massachusetts
September 1, 2024 [full gallery at the end]
Had a real sweet evening at Brookwood Community Farm’s Folk on the Farm event in Canton yesterday.
I’ve been slowly repairing my relationship with photography after years of burnout - taking things step by step, staying open and releasing pressure when it comes up. I’ve been slowly feeling the passion return.
When I photographed another one of my dearest people, Cheyenne, on the eve of their gender-affirming chest reduction surgery in early August, I felt the flame starting to light me up again, this time with new dimensions mixed in with the familiar.
I’ve noticed myself getting more curious about bringing my camera with me places again, giving myself space to play. I forgot how much I love connecting with people and places this way, and I love being reminded each time I bring it.
So yesterday, on my way out the door, I brought my camera on a whim.
I got there a bit later in the event, so I missed Ragu, but caught a bunch of The Moonbeams’ set. A small crowd was gathered under a gorgeous, giant Maple tree.
Pals and kiddos climbing up its massive, winding limbs, bare feet dangling, others lounging on its sprawling, ropey roots. A light breeze moving through the leaves, families and friends gathered on blankets and chairs, listening to the banjo and sweet voices harmonizing. Chips and Maggie’s homemade dips, my first time trying baba ganoush.
Gorgeous dahlias from 13 Moon Farm, tiny cantaloupes, juicy raspberries that I’m gonna miss dearly when winter comes. Pals being sweet and playful with each other, many worlds coming together, basking in the interconnectedness of it all. Backlit fuzzy grass and rows of sunflowers as the sun sets.
So dreamy. Good spirit feel for sure.
Bonus digital sunset selfies courtesy of Zenaida’s long arms cause they’re real sweet -
—
After, an evening trip to Houghton’s Pond with Maggie and Rabbit.
Crickets and frogs and cicadas, silhouetted trees and points of light in the sky that may or may not be a plane/star/planet/???.
A whoosh turned into a spontaneous game, marigolds in the water, letting go and making wishes.
Having my portrait made by rabbit in the dying light, remembering the joy it brings me to share the magic of using this camera I love with others. And the magic of being seen through the eyes of friends.
Singing simple songs about the beating of our hearts and love and solidarity together on our way back to the car.
The sweetest goodbye to the month of August.
Ahh, what a joy to have my camera with me!
I’m appreciating the ways that photographs often invite me to linger on an experience: to notice details I might have missed, to reconnect with the felt sense of being there, to fill up on the nectar of the sweet connections and the presence of the people + environment in them.
I’m looking forward to following this thread… what might emerge?
Full gallery below!
PS. if you’re any of these photos and want to arrange picking up the physical instaxes that you’re in, send me an email at info@emily-tebbetts.com or DM me on Instagram and we’ll arrange a pickup!
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Cheyenne || Embodied Portraiture + Witnessing Pre- Gender-affirming Chest Reduction Surgery
These portraits are of my dear, beloved friend Cheyenne on the eve of their gender affirming chest reduction surgery.
I’m feeling inspired to tell some of the story behind these portraits, which comes with a lot of personal significance for me.
If you’re not feeling called to read right now, you can scroll to the bottom for the full set of photos.
Cheyenne coming into my life back in 2017 changed nearly everything for me - I truly cannot overstate the impact her presence, her magic, and her friendship (also, her photography + her own self-portraiture) has had on my life: my personhood, my freedom in myself, my relationship with my body, myself as a sexual being, my relationship with beauty and softness and pleasure, my relationship with online community, and practicing toward liberation daily through the ways we love one another.
Cheyenne and I have witnessed and loved and supported each other through so much self-discovery, hardship, growth, loss, and life transition. We’ve kept each other company as we’ve journeyed through the depths of our underworlds, and through the many expansions that intertwine…personally, creatively, and professionally.
In the time we’ve been friends, we both came into our queerness, and then into our gender identities. It has been SO BEAUTIFUL to witness Cheyenne in their own queerness + gender journey. Most recently, the questions they had to answer for themselves, the risks they chose to take to move toward their body’s truth and desires, and the grief they’ve chosen to face that accompanies stepping more fully into your freedom, your truth, your vulnerability, the legitimacy of your desires, and receiving more abundantly.
I had the honor of being Cheyenne’s primary care person for the day of their surgery and the day or two after, and had planned to get down to Philly the evening before.
After many years of burnout that affected my relationship with photography in particular, I’ve been slowly finding my passion for it again, delighting in the emerging ways I could integrate the kind of embodiment magic I love practicing and facilitating with the portraits I was making.
As we got closer to Cheyenne’s surgery, I had a deepening knowing that I wanted to photograph them before their surgery as a ritual, as a portal, as a space to process and feel and honor past selves and express and make art out of it all on this threshold of a new chapter of life.
It was such an honor to do this with them. And such a sweet, rich treasure for me, getting to share this experience with them. There were so many special moments, so many tears.
We made these photos at the Pennypack Ecological Restoration Trust - a beautiful stretch of land that was just a few minutes away from Cheyenne’s childhood home.
Cheyenne and I have talked a lot about nature and our desire to live more immersed in nature over the years. If you know Cheyenne, you know their deep love for the rivers and the woods. I love love loved getting to witness them and photograph them in this beautiful place that they so clearly had a deep, reverent connection with.
The air felt thick with presence and significance to me as we walked out to the field and began dropping into the session. I asked Cheyenne if there was anyone they wanted to call in, or whose presence she wanted to name. Her people were already there with her, which didn’t surprise me at all, but felt powerful to hear spoken aloud. Then, she told me that my mom was there too, and that she had come with me.
My mom died when I was 19, after a decade long journey with breast cancer. She went through many surgeries, including a double mastectomy. As I felt into my own needs in preparing for my role in Cheyenne’s care team, I was struck by how much came up from my earlier experiences of my mom’s surgeries, illness, and death.
When Cheyenne named her presence, I could feel the truth of it. It felt so powerful, this moment of re-engaging with photography in this new way in collaboration with one of my dearest soul friends, on the threshold of a new chapter of life and self-expression.
Big tears.
We moved through the field slowly, letting the emotions come up and wash over, tuning into our senses, letting our bodies move in expression and response. I felt the passion I had for photography as a teen rekindled strong and true, after a long time of nursing a spark and some embers.
This is what I want to do. And I want to do it this way.
Light was fading and the gates were due to close soon, so we buzzed around a bit, finding our way back to the parking lot. On our way, we stumbled upon a field that was clearly calling out for us to play and make in. Just real quick!! God I loved that part about portrait sessions, and I had forgotten.
I invited Cheyenne to drop into presence and intuitive movement for a bit before we left, and I think those photos are my favorite from the whole session - it was so dark at that time, so I knew I was working with long shutterspeeds and intentional expressive motion blur and intentionally underexposed images. I loooove it how it looks on the black and white instax square film.
There’s so much more I could share - more to say another day, when I’ve processed the experience more fully. For now, I’ll just say -
The way Cheyenne and I approached preparing for that time together - making space for the anxieties, fears, emotions and triggers, and needs we each had and working with them - was such a healing and significant experience for me.
Seeing one of my dearest, most bedrock people in such a vulnerable state, and watching them navigate tender growth edges to practice receiving connection and support of all kinds was, too.
It was such an honor and beautiful growing experience for me to get to be a part of this in all the ways that I was. A potent reminder that being in the practice of caring for one another’s well-being and freedom and self-expression nourishes everyone who participates.
If you’ve read this far, thank you for witnessing. It means a lot to me to share these.
Here are their portraits -
FULL SET Below
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