In my hunt for models for my Daughters of the King series, I reached out to youth leaders from my church and was ultimately led to Haylie. When I learned that Haylie was a dancer, I did a little happy tango on the inside. When I found out she was a classically trained ballerina, it was as if the entire Radio City Rockettes corp was doing the can can in my heart. 

As a six year old in a pretty pink skirt and rhinestone leotard attending my very first ballet class, I gained a deep love for dance that took me through fifteen wonderful years and through every stage of life one experiences between the ages of six and twenty-one. Dance became a monumental aspect of my life that has and will always enthrall and inspire me. 

And so it was with all the effort I could muster that I anxiously waited until the next upcoming Saturday when I could finally meet up with Haylie. It was a beautiful late autumn day in Boston as we walked from Haylie's dorm on Beacon Street down to the Charles River Esplanade. On our walk, I learned just how much dance meant to Haylie, as she told me how she had left her family behind in California to pursue her dreams here in Boston. To make this tale even more incredible, she is not even in high school yet!

But that is the magical thing about having something to be passionate about, I have found. It gives us the strength to do things we never thought we were even capable of attempting!

Over the years, it has become pretty clear that photography is something I have grown very passionate about. Sometimes I like to think that as dance was slowly pushed out of my life, photography came in to fill in this space my heart knew was missing inside. So you can imagine the amount of joy I felt as I spent the afternoon remembering all the many happy experiences from my childhood. Those times where I could pretend I was a fairy, or a princess, or whatever my heart wanted to be, so long as I had ballet slippers on my feet and a pretty pink skirt around my waist.

Photographing Hayley, and seeing the passion in her eyes and in her every movement, was like being that child all over again, exploring creative expression and feeling like I could be anything I wanted to be. 

I believe that is why photography has come to be the intrinsic facet of my life that it is today. With photography I can create anything, do anything, and therefore be anything. Inspiration and creativity, in whatever form they come in, are what makes me feel the most alive and what provide the strongest sense of passion and happiness in my life.

So twenty years from now, it matters not whether or not photography is the source of creative expression I turn to. It only matters that I have something to be passionate about and that I can pursue that with everything I have and with everything I love. Until that time comes, I will pursue this happiness that I have found with all my soul and with every last piece my heart has to give.