06/11/2026
Photography and writing walk hand in hand for me, though they serve very different purposes.
I write to understand my own inner world. Photography allows me to sit quietly with a child and witness theirs.
Children live in a space many adults have forgotten. They feel deeply, dream freely, and carry an honesty that exists beyond words. They may not always be able to explain who they are, but their energy tells a story all its own.
When I photograph a child, I am not simply documenting how they look. I am listening. I am paying attention to the way they move through the world, what lights them up, where their curiosity lives, and how their spirit expresses itself. Every choice I make in the editing process, the light, the shadows, the colours, is intentionally crafted to reflect that essence.
For years, I have shared the photographs without sharing the thoughts behind them. Yet so much of my work is rooted in what I feel while sitting in the presence of a child. Children carry extraordinary wisdom. They teach us about resilience, wonder, joy, grief, courage, and imagination, often all at once.
This little one has experienced great loss in her young life. But what I saw was not loss. I saw strength. I saw a child learning how to hold both tenderness and courage in the same heart. I saw curiosity, beauty, and a spirit that refuses to stop exploring.
When I asked if she would like to get dressed up and let me do her hair, her face illuminated with excitement. She wasn’t becoming someone else. She was being given permission to fully step into the magic that already lived within her.
To me, children’s portraiture is a sacred act of witnessing. It is an opportunity to honour who a child is in this fleeting moment of their journey, before the world asks them to be anything different.
The art is never about creating something that wasn’t there. It is about seeing what has always been there and helping others see it too.
