I have had many interesting portrait sessions this past month but one in particular is really standing out in my mind. As most of you know, I also teach photography. Well one of my former students gave me a call and said she wanted to do a full lifestyle portrait session. Lifestyle portraits are one of my signature products and are typically 3 to 4 hour long session. They involve going to several locations and include indoor studio shots and outdoor shots. She was very definite about where she wanted to go for her outdoor shots, Stanley Park seawall and the Rose Garden. She also told me she had a surprise. The day before the session I checked the forecast and it was for pouring rain. I called her up and she said she did not care if it was raining, she still wanted to go ahead with the session.
We met up the next morning at 7am in Stanley Park, and yes it was raining. Now was the time for the surprise – her transformed body. One year ago she had decided that she was going to do the Sun Run. To do so, she decided she needed to loose a significant amount of weight and get into better physical conditioning. Her achievement was inspiring. We spent several hours in Stanley Park photographing her where she trained for the Sun Run and talking about her achievement. The fact that it was raining didn’t matter at all.
In our conversation, she made a statement that I think is very profound. She said that the hardest part of loosing the weight and getting into shape was imagining herself as a slender, fit person. She said that even now she sometimes does not believe that she is. I think this is profound because I believe that in order to achieve anything significant, we first need to believe it. If we don’t believe it, we won’t achieve it. I was honoured that she chose me to create these portraits for her.