"I'm not afraid of storms,
for I'm learning to sail my ship."
-- Louisa May Alcott
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| Mackenna 8-10-14 |
"If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun."
-- Katharine Hepburn
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| Mackenna 8-10-14 |
"The question isn't who's going to let me;
it's who is going to stop me?"
-- Ayn Rand
Most girls, when they get their senior portraits taken, want everything to be just so.
Their hair.
Their makeup.
Their clothes.
Most girls bring different outfits to change during the session, to make sure they choose the perfect one.
Not this girl.
She let the wind style her hair.
She let the lake water spray her in the face where she wore, maybe, a tiny touch of mascara if anything.
She brought extra outfits to change during the session in case she got too wet and needed something dry to go home in.
She didn't choose the ho-hum safety of a portrait studio.
This girl chose the rocky landscape of a wavy, unpredictable shoreline where waves crashed and splashed with the strong gale blowing in -- where spiders crawled up her legs and snakes lay safely coiled in their snug holes watching this crazy kid climb and scramble barefoot over the break-wall.
She stood fearlessly, like Kate Winslet on the bow of the Titanic, chin thrust forward, hair blowing back, arms stretched out, daring the waves to reach her.
I kept telling her to be careful, and she kept asking if she should get closer to the water, shouting over the deafening wind, "It's okay! I'll get wet!"
I have sons, but if I'd had a daughter, I'd want her to have the moxie and spunk, the rascally adventurous spirit and joie de vivre that this girl has.
I felt unusually lucky to be the one she asked to try and capture her in photographs at this moment of her young life.
I did my best.
But it's hard to capture a free thing.
