Just Do It!

“It’s not about getting the perfect pose; it’s about just having fun.”

Morgan is the daughter of one of my very close friends. At 12 years old, she is beautiful, confident, independent, and marches to the beat of her own drum. And now, with the help of her mother, she is steadily breaking ground as a model (remember her face, ya’ll!). Her mother and I had spoken about collaborating FOR MONTHS, but we could never get the timing down. Before I knew it we were on the cusp of November and I knew that shooting outdoors would become a gamble from thereon (Autumn & Winter can be so unpredictable in NYC—one week it would be 55 and sunny, the next it’s 29 degrees and everyone is jumping into eskimo mode!). So that week despite my already-tight schedule and no plan in mind, I messaged her saying: we are doing this.

And it was on.

That Sunday after church, Morgan and I, along with a couple of her pals, headed for a nearby park in Queens. It ended up being the perfect spot to shoot at because of its vast and wide fields of lush green grass, massive trees, and—a bonus—oversized bushes and hedges which made for the perfect nature backdrop (as you will see below).

Morgan was a complete natural. She didn’t get nervous or feel self-conscious at all, nor did she overly pose and get model-y like most Insta-stars her age; she smiled, laughed, strolled and lived in the moment, and rarely did I have to direct her. She was just being Morgan.

What was even more was that her bros just so happened to be well coordinated in their outfits—which was not planned at all (they had literally just found out about our plans and decided to come with us as we were leaving). I told them to jump in and the results surprised me. Talk about bonuses! (Thanks God!)

After editing the photos I sent them to my friend and she was hype. “I’m speechless!” She exclaimed (and frankly, so was I). I did not expect the outcome to exceed any of our expectations that much. But such is life sometimes, right??

In the end, I’m happy that I pushed passed myself and my perfectionist mentality to have every detail of the shoot planned to a T—and that’s not to disregard the importance of planning and being organized because both are very important practices to keep. But I learned that It’s not about getting the perfect pose; it’s about just having fun.

You can check out more flicks from this shoot here.