Meet Riley.
Goes by "Roe."
She's easily one of THE most influential and inspiring young women I've ever met.
She's a:
believer.
mother.
wife.
fierce friend.
honestly your biggest cheerleader.
Haven't met her yet? Shame on you! Say hello, she's an absolute sweetheart and you won't regret it. But don't just take my word for it, read her story:
Roe was just sixteen years old when she gave birth to her son. She was in high school, highly ostrisized, (and heavily burdened with making the journey alone), despite whatever she or the baby's father wanted. Their families tore them apart. She was kept from seeing the man she loved most, all while single-handedly raising their baby.
She could have left high school.
She could have skipped college.
She chose for that to NOT be the example for her son.
Roe picked herself up postpartum, (one of the hardest things any mother can do), and she persevered through the rumors and the pain of heartbreak. She studied, she put her school second to her son, and she graduated with her classmates. The entire time she was completing school, she was also working part time and mothering her son, with the help of her father and grandmother. Despite the family of her son's father and their harsh words, or the hurtful comments she endured from classmates at school that she couldn't do it -- she did. But she didn't stop there...
After an intimate summer wedding ceremony, she and her son's father were forever reunited and have moved across the country to start a life together. He's in the navy, she's enrolled in nursing school and taking care of their son full-time.
But before all that... She made time for something she wanted to do: to tell her story through a beautiful session that encompassed the pain, the strength and resilience, and the ferocity of being a woman and mother with an agenda. So, we sat down and cultivated her vision. We made a plan to shoot three sessions across two days, back-to-back, and bring her vision to life.
The first session started at a popular location in Pensacola, FL: Graffiti Bridge. Mostly made popular by artists and local tagging groups, this spot is frequently hit by trucks trying to push the height limit of the bridge's clearance, but the Pensacola community stands strong and continues to rebuild it time after time. We chose this as a backdrop because the location signifies the resilience in Roe.
From there, we transformed Roe's energy and spunk into a true work of art by encompassing the emotions that engulf postpartum mothers. We wanted to showcase how foggy, entranced, and run down a woman can be during this period of life, after giving life to another. For Roe, she wanted to show how wiped of creativity she felt, how bare she felt, how raw and vulnerable she was, and how walked on she was by people she thought loved her.
Afterward, we ended her photo-diary by creating a session geared at giving her back her creativity and light. I wanted to restore the color within Roe, and show not only others but herself that she wasn't truly gone; she was just buried under the weight of life and pressure. But even in the hardest pressures, come the greatest diamonds. The result was truly magnificent, and I've never seen a more determined young woman blossom the way she did before me in just two short days.
See for yourself...
