• the pleasure of being photographed by her, •

i wish you all.

back in june, i surprised emily with a photoshoot for her birthday. we dressed up, brought props, and met denise aka bohogirl at the beach early in the morning. meeting her after emailing for months in the planning stages was such a relief. she was exactly as she portrays herself online. open, warm, lovely, intuitive, gentle. my nerves on the car ride to the beach were running high, i was anxious about not being behind the camera mostly, nervous about my body, my chin, my profile…totally doing what i tell everyone NOT to do. where was my zen, my just be you?

as soon as we met, hugged, giggled nervously, and started talking all of those nerves left me completely. i let go completely, and we had the best time.

emily and i had a few ideas in our heads of things we would like to do, but mostly we just wanted denise to do what she does best. here are my favorite photos from our session with her.

am i perfect? no. but i look at these photos and they mean everything to me. it was a morning just for us. girls. friends. women. we connected with denise so deeply. she just gives of herself so freely. she has just restructured her photography business to focus purely on photographing other artists. models, painters, authors, photographers, musicians…such a lovely idea to be able to collaborate every session with another creative minded individual. i know she is going to blow our minds!

and this, (smile), was an idea emily had, i think? we wanted to show our differences. so she brought along a jar of lentils from her kitchen, and i saved a mcdonald’s drive-thru bag. definitely an exaggeration of sorts, but funny, so so funny. this is going big in my house somewhere!

just be us.

have a great weekend everyone! im off to the beach with the kiddos, jeff, my camera, and a surfboard. (our new friday after school ritual…)

xo

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69 Comments

  1. Tara, I so love this, I’ve been following your blog for awhile, in fact this is where I learned about Cheryl’s Secret Workshop, which was so wonderful. I can feel the genuine connection between you two. Thank you for sharing all of your life so openly.

  2. Ms tara whitney – you are just gorge. really you are. I think you have absolutely no idea how well you dress and that its flattering and funky. You have such a warm presence and I like you in your photos.
    so there.

  3. Hi Tara,
    I don’t know if you have to time to read all of your comments but I wanted to let you know that I really enjoy your blog. Your photos always put a smile on my face. If you ever decide to do a mentoring program I would be the first one to sign up. Recently I’ve noticed this sort of hazy , old school look to your photos. Any chance you would be willing to share how you achieve this look. I love, love, love it!!!!
    Sincerely, Liz Zoppa

  4. Tara-
    Just had to comment on the photos of you and Emily – LOVE them! I hate that you were anxious about how you would look – you are beautiful! Really! I don’t mean the whole “beauty comes from within” line (not that it IS a line…) but I mean really beautiful! You see yourself in the morning when you first wake up, and with no makeup, etc. No one looks good then! But in any picture Ihave seen you – you look great!
    Katie

  5. Ohh Tara.. I have been bad about blog reading lately because I have been so busy editing but.. I am so glad I found these.. I love them.. LOVE THEM.. I wish I had a friend like this.. I really dont anymore.. and I miss that.. but I love these.. whoops said that like 3 times… so I guess you get the point. hahah.. you both look gorgeous.. these are so so fun..

  6. Tara-

    girl-from the moment I saw these I was fawning-giggling and just plain giddy.

    To have you and Den get together just filled me with joy. She has taken my most loved portraits and to see her capture the joy between you and Em just blew me away.

    My dream is that we can have you do a shoot for us some day:)

    Love and kisses
    T

  7. kindred…that’s the word that come to mind when I see you pictured together- Man, I feel like I know you and all these amazIng talented super women out in cyber world!!!
    Thanks for the continued inspiration!

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