Hannah

Hannah, 11 in this image, is a dancer. But unlike most 11 year-olds, she is more committed to dance than young ladies much older than she. As we began designing Hanna’s session, her mother told me that Hannah once broke her foot just a few weeks before a big performance. She hobbled to practices and continued to dance on a broken foot so as not to throw the rest of her dance team out of sync. We were able to capture the essence of that spirit in this portrait, which remains one of my favorites from her session. Rather than merely capturing what Hannah looked like at 11, I wanted to craft an image that would inspire her with her own strength of mind when she’s 31, 51, even 81 years old. An image that says, “THIS is me, and I am brilliant.”