Clean Slate Portraits for the New Year

One of my first shoots of the year was January’s #peachieportraitday and for these sessions, I tried something I’ve never done in a shoot before…

Our sessions were all on a full white backdrop. Nothing else. Just clean and bright and ready for anything. 

But I’ve done that before. 

I wanted these to be more than fun portraits. I wanted them to help set the tone for the year.

To go with the clean slate and New Year theming I wanted to integrate a positive, new year intention. So I asked everyone to do an exercise with me. I wasn’t sure how it would go over, but I was very excited to try.

New Year’s resolutions tend to get a bad rap because they tend to start people off in the new year (or really, three weeks into the year) with feelings of guilt and shame when they’re not completing them as they envisioned. 

So let’s forget resolutions.

Instead of setting a New Year’s resolution, I asked each woman to close their eyes, take deep breaths with me and envision an intention for the year. A feeling. A word. An emotion. Something simple and clear that they’d like to see come to fruition this year. I then asked them to take a few more deep breaths and when they were ready, open their eyes imagining that their intention had come true and they have built it into being.

It was one of the best ways I’ve ever ended a session and each attendee hugged me after and it made my heart swell.

We are 2/12 into 2020 (well I guess 1/6 if we’re being proper) and I already feel that these images will be some of my favorite from the year. Photos have the potential to transform and that’s the power I want to engage this year.

Here are some of my favorites from the day.

xo,

L