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 -