Maybe You’re Not Supposed To Feel Ready | Indianapolis Portrait Photography

There’s something I’ve heard from several of the people I’ve photographed for BARE that I wasn’t necessarily expecting: “I wanted to do this because it is completely outside my comfort zone.” But instead of that being the reason not to do it, it was actually part of the reason they wanted to.

I find that really interesting, because BARE was never meant to be an experience only for people who are naturally comfortable in front of a camera. Honestly, most people aren’t. You don’t have to walk into the studio feeling confident, know how to pose or have any idea what you’re going to do once you’re standing in front of me. That’s my part of the job.

BARE is a portrait experience, but it’s also a conversation. We talk. We move. We laugh. We try things. Sometimes we make a beautifully composed, perfectly crisp portrait, and sometimes I love the photograph with movement, blur, grain or a little grittiness even more. I’m not always looking for the technically perfect photograph. I’m not looking for you to look perfectly posed. I’m looking for something that feels and looks like you.

What Happens When You Do Something That Makes You a Little Nervous?

Most of us know exactly how we like to be photographed. We know which side we prefer, how we want to stand and which parts of ourselves we’d rather not draw attention to. We also know how quickly we can find something we don’t like when someone shows us a photograph of ourselves.

BARE asks you to loosen your grip on some of that. Not by pushing you into something that doesn’t feel like you, but by giving you room to see yourself a little differently.

For one person, stepping outside their comfort zone might mean wearing something they would never normally wear in front of a camera. For someone else, it might simply mean allowing the focus to be entirely on them. It might mean looking directly into the camera instead of hiding from it, trying something unexpected, or trusting me enough to stop worrying about what every frame looks like while we’re making it.

And here’s the thing: you can be nervous and still do it. In fact, I haven’t had a single person start one of these sessions without being at least a little nervous. You can feel awkward at first and still end up loving the experience. Being outside your comfort zone doesn’t mean you’re doing something wrong. Sometimes it just means you’re doing something you haven’t given yourself permission to do before.

Maybe That’s Part of What BARE Is

The more BARE sessions I photograph, the more I realize that the finished photographs are only one piece of it. There’s something that happens in the process, too. There’s a point when someone starts thinking less about the camera. They stop trying quite so hard to pose correctly. They laugh. They move. They settle in. They start to trust me. And that’s usually when I start seeing the photographs I love most.

Not because the person suddenly became someone different or magically learned how to be in front of a camera. It’s because they stopped thinking quite so much about how they were being seen and started simply being themselves.

Maybe that’s the part of stepping outside your comfort zone that matters. It doesn’t have to mean doing something extreme or becoming someone you’re not. Sometimes it’s just giving yourself permission to do something you’ve thought about, even when there’s a little voice telling you that you’re too old, too awkward, not photogenic enough, not confident enough—or that this simply isn’t something you would normally do.

You don’t have to wait until you feel completely comfortable. Sometimes you just have to be curious enough to see what happens when you do it anyway. If you’ve been thinking about doing something a little outside your comfort zone, maybe BARE is exactly that something. You don’t need to know how to pose, feel confident in front of a camera, or have a special reason to be photographed. You just need to show up as yourself, and we’ll take it from there.

Curious about BARE? I’d love to tell you more about this one-of-a-kind portrait experience at my Indianapolis studio. Explore BARE Unfiltered and see what it’s all about.