Kimberly’s Portrait Experience

Kimberly saw her portrait experience as an opportunity to have fun and do something she hadn’t done before. She was excited about seeing her portraits but didn’t expect them to reveal so many different sides of herself. Like many women who have their portrait taken for the first time, she was struck by how much of her inner beauty I was able to capture.

“It doesn’t look like I see myself. I look different…I know that it’s me but it doesn’t match with my internal image of myself, which is plainer…there’s a lot of beauty that I don’t always see.

She saw herself as put together, strong, sassy, tender, and vulnerable in the portraits. She especially liked that I was able to capture the serious side of her that most people don’t know about. She was drawn to those images the most. Prior to seeing her reveal, I told her that some women had emotional reactions and cried. Instead of wanting to cry, Kimberly said seeing herself this way made her feel happy and giddy. She wanted to laugh with joy.

In her post-reveal interview, Kimberly said she was struck by how genuine and real her portraits looked. With the makeup and hair styling, she expected it to look more glamorous and ‘made-up’ but found the opposite to be true. She felt they really ‘revealed’ her and not just the roles she plays.

“It’s me looking good, me looking my best but it’s still me…One thing I see is I see me. I don’t see that mom…the wife…the neighbor…I just see me…the different aspects of me… I also see someone I don’t think about a lot.”

There was a moment when Kimberly became emotional about her experience. I asked her why it was important to have these pictures. She explained that when she told her daughter about this session, her immediate reaction was to ask for a print to hang in her room. It made her realize how important having a picture of mom was to her daughter because it is a tangible reminder of their love.

“Sometimes you forget that that’s important to your kids…that they just see you through the lens of that love and relationship that you have and that they cherish it and they can have something physical that reminds them of that…Not just pictures with my kids but having the picture of just their mom.”

Watch Kimberly’s reveal for yourself to see her reaction first hand and listen to what she had to say about her portrait experience. When you look at Kimberly’s portraits, who do you see? Many of us have different sides, some we share publicly and others keep to ourselves. What sides do you think your portrait will reveal?