great smoky mountains national park (Patreon)

The tip top of an epic uphill trail in the smokies on a gloriously cold morning. It was immensely windy, but the sun's glow was so beautiful. I remember being freezing cold, if you zoom in on some shots, you might even see my goosebumps. They were worth it, no doubt, as this was our very last set of the Asheville adventure @ohseephotography and I went on. I don't have many shots of myself in all of my time nature modeling where the sun is this stunning and bright in the early morning. We missed the true sunrise, but this was almost, if not better.

The hike up was brutal, but the way down was much easier and the feeling of a successfully pulled off shoot fills your lungs, mind, eyes and heart. The hike down goes by in a breeze, whereas along the way up you're (or at least, I am) constantly thinking: "How is this going to go? Will we pull it off? Will there be a million people around making it near impossible to get naked and shoot? Will it end up being underwhelming and not worth it? Could we have pivoted to something else?" - I try to remind myself in those prior to shoot moments that truly what is meant to be, will be. What if something bad, like an injury or offending somebody happened at a different spot? The model never knows what ends up becoming of the shots from a fast-paced nature shoot until the final edits - what if they actually look amazing and it was SO worth it?! Unlimited what ifs. What if.. you just let go and let things be? This process is fun, it's soul fulfilling, it's how you express yourself. That's a brief stream of my consciousness that I ping pong around in my mind it most shoot environments, always trying to remind myself to slow down and enjoy it. Hope someone found this helpful or maybe interesting, if you read this far. Thank you for being here :')