In a world where we often hide behind carefully crafted masks, embracing vulnerability and revealing our true selves takes courage. This bold portrait session is more than just a photoshoot—it’s a journey of self-discovery, transforming fear into empowering art. By shedding the layers of pretense and stepping into my client’s authentic self, we captured a portrait of courage, confidence, and the beauty of being unapologetically her.
The Visionaries
I love working with visionaries. They are creators on a similar footing as I am. They don’t just approach with a request to create nice portraits. They already have a profound vision to reflect through photography, whether lifelong, of a current life cycle, or even a given perspective. It could be global or highly localized to a moment in time, a character trait, or an emotion.
The vision is deep in their mind, but they lack the technical skills or experience to express it through a camera, light, and composition.
Working with such visionaries is twice as fulfilling and meaningful, as the photographer’s creativity is amplified by his client’s. One such client who stood out was Alena Donskaya with her bold portrait session “Esoteria”. Another example was a lady taming Dissociative Identity Disorder with self-harm. Here are the examples from that and other sessions:
Bearing an Untold Story
One cold February day, Nataliya Falevich contacted me through my website’s live chat, seeking someone to bring her bold portrait session vision to life. She’s a successful entrepreneur, thinker, and mother. A good scroll through her Facebook will give a glimpse of her persona as an ideator and pondered. Here’s a translated condensed version of one of her posts:
The truth is, you need to take off the rose-colored glasses and really look at your life. What’s actually happening around you? Your environment doesn’t lie. Is your home a mess? Are you rushing through life, juggling kids, work, and a hundred other things, all while feeling exhausted? And then Instagram tells you to love yourself, but it doesn’t seem to work, right? You feel like you’re not good enough. But you are. You just need to figure out where your energy is going. Stop chasing the next pretty picture on Instagram, close your phone, and look around. What’s really happening in your space?
Admit that you’re tired—really tired. Take a breath. You don’t need to be a victim; it’s just burnout from all this Instagram-perfect nonsense. No coach, psychic, astrologer, or “certified spiritual master” can tell you what you need. Only you know that. It takes honesty to admit that the best help you can get is from yourself. Coaches and mentors can be crutches, but do you want to depend on crutches forever? Or will you learn to walk on your own?Nataliya
She told me about her desire to share her story, one piece at a time. For starters, we took on two of them.
Vision One of a Bold Portrait Session
The first vision centers on shedding all the masks she wears. In life, we often put on various masks, pretending to be different versions of ourselves to fit in or meet expectations. But deep down, there’s a universal longing to break free from this constant act, to drop the charade and be who we truly are. When those masks finally come off for Nataliya, what emerges is her true self—vulnerable, yet powerful in her authenticity, and deeply connected to her sensuality.
We started her bold portrait session at her home. She gathered several relevant masks, and we matched the outfits for them. I picked the backgrounds and setups for each, working with both studio and natural light. Each portrait has a meaning, which I’ll let Nataliya elaborate on in her posts and words. She’ll do it better.
Vision Two
The second theme revolves around surfing, even though Nataliya doesn’t know how to surf and her swimming skills are simply absent. This is about confronting her deepest fear of the vast ocean and discovering the freedom that comes when you surrender to its immense power. She envisioned herself out on the water with a board, then standing on the shore—her hair messy and salty, her skin tingling from the sea. She’s exhausted, yet deeply happy, because she found a profound sense of liberation in that moment of surrendering to her fear. The emotions are raw, and the atmosphere is charged with the energy of overcoming something monumental.
Water is my passion and my deepest pain. The truth is, I’m afraid of my own enormous, destructive power that sweeps everything away in its path. I’m afraid to accept this force, even in my dreams, to step into it and become a part of it. FOR NOW, I’m still afraid.Nataliya
Curiously, the only phobia I have is that of deep dark water because of some childhood experience… It squeezes my mind, but I work through it when it is unavoidable, such as shooting underwater in this deep cave hole in the Dominican Republic. I was also ready to shoot whale sharks with a pregnant lady in the Gulf of Mexico when the weather canceled our booked boat trip. She still got her bold portrait session in an underwater cave.
For this part of this all-day bold portrait session, we drove from Brooklyn to Staten Island to one of my favorite beaches. It is almost deserted, which creates a more comfortable atmosphere for any artistic project. We didn’t luck out with stormy weather to perfectly support her words above, but the occasional sun added glam. Here she is, embracing fear.
Are You a Visionary?
If you’re a visionary who resonates with the deep pull of unmasking your true self, confronting the fears that hold you back, or feel any other pull of untapped potential within you, yet find yourself standing on the edge, unsure how to dive in—I invite you to collaborate on your bold portrait session. Together, we can explore these powerful themes and bring your visions to life through creative expression. Let’s channel that immense energy, those dreams that haunt you, and turn them into something tangible and transformative.
Your ideas deserve to be more than just dreams; they can become powerful realities, capturing the essence of your inner world. Let’s create something extraordinary together, here’s the start.
Behind the Scenes
I only got one behind-the-scene shot this time, taken at the beach’s parking lot when we were done. Brought a full aresnal for an indoor studio set up, outdoor portable light, and underwater housing for safe shooting while in the waves.
