Earlier this year I did these senior portraits with Isabel over around Haight Ashbury. For someone who loves music and dance and ice cream and books and city vibes, it was a good fit.
During the photo shoot I kept having these existential moments. I’ve known Isabel since she was a little kid, but I don’t actually see her very often, so to me it just felt like she turned into an adult overnight. Isabel’s mom Jenny is a dear friend of mine; she has another daughter a few years older and I regularly bug Jenny to tell me every single thing she knows about raising daughters. I admire her immensely and would be quite pleased if my kids turned out remotely like hers. During our shoot, having the realization that, given my oldest is nine, I’m really only nine years away from this point in life, I would vacillate between feeling utterly horrified at the sound of the things a graduating senior does on her own (has a job, munis all over town, bathes, picks out music, gets body art) and feeling such a sense of hope and excitement that if I am so lucky, I could have one of these kind, opinionated, fun, funny, smart, employed, independent little grown-ups (especially one that loves her mom so much. There are a bunch of shots of Jenny in here too because Isabel kept grabbing her and hugging her and laughing and talking with her).
