Growing up in Philadelphia, I'd have to split my favorite memories down the middle. On the one hand, there was the big box of costumes under the basement stairs. I loved dressing up and imagining all the adventures I could go on. My mind was full of fantasy - people and places I could only read about and see in artwork.

 

The local library must have gotten tired of seeing my face peering over stacks of fairytales with stunning illustrations. In my imagination, that box of costumes transformed me into the heroine of my favorite stories.

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Ah, but then there was camping with my dad. When we drove out past the concrete, past the traffic, past the lights and set up our tents in the woods. There was seeing the view from the top of a mountain and walking together at night to see the perfect reflection of a million stars in the lake. Even in hiking boots and covered in mosquito bites, the breathtaking beauty of nature overwhelmed and inspired me.

 

Real magic.

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All these years later, magic still feels real to me. But now I know that we make so much of it ourselves. Those illustrations and fairytale heroes were drawn, painted, created by adults with an imagination — adults who had seen the real world, walked through it every day. Sometimes hurting. Sometimes tired. Sometimes barely holding on.

 

I used to worry that growing up might mean leaving all of that behind.

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As Lloyd Alexander once said: "Fantasy is hardly an escape from reality. It's a way of understanding it."

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That's what a portrait session with me is. Not an escape. An exploration — of who you are, what you've experienced, and how breathtakingly beautiful you are when you're fully, wonderfully yourself.

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In a forest. In a field. Beneath the water.

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Thanks for being here. Now let's go write your story.

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- Alexis