photographic essay · 01

Choosing
Ourselves

An ongoing photographic project about women, identity, intimacy, and the ways we choose to exist and be seen.

Mexico City · ongoing

Choosing Ourselves is an ongoing photographic project about women, identity, intimacy, and the ways we choose to exist and be seen. The project began in Mexico City after my return to Mexico following fourteen years living in the UK. Coming back meant reconnecting with a country that was familiar, but also changed by time, distance, and my own experience of living elsewhere.

Photography became a way for me to find my place again. Rather than documenting Mexico as a landscape, I began looking at the people around me and the relationships that were helping me feel connected to the city. The women in this work are friends, artists, photographers, stylists, educators, creatives, and collaborators. Some are women I had known before leaving Mexico, while others became part of my life after returning. Through photographing them, I began to understand my own return through connection.

Portrait of a woman seen from behind with her hands clasped

Woman reclining in a purple dress across a bed

The project is interested in the many ways femininity can be lived and defined. The women I photograph have very different relationships with their bodies, identities, sexuality, work, and communities. One is a photographer and trans woman who has chosen to live and embrace her femininity on her own terms. Another is a friend and lingerie shop owner who approaches sensuality as a form of self knowledge and expression. Others find their own ways of expressing strength through vulnerability, creativity, humor, softness, or simply taking up space.

Intimate side portrait in soft window light

Woman seated on the floor wrapped in violet fabric

Woman standing confidently in a red patterned dress

Woman standing in a long skirt in a softly lit room

Cassandra and Amanda standing together in an intimate portrait — Cassandra & Amanda

Close portrait of Cassandra and Amanda embracing — Cassandra & Amanda

Cassandra and Amanda resting closely against each other — Cassandra & Amanda

I am not interested in creating a single representation of what a woman should look like. I want to make space for difference, in body, skin tone, identity, age, personality, and experience. The portraits are not intended to categorize these women, but to allow each person to bring her own understanding of herself into the image.

Woman standing in a pink skirt with her face turned toward the light

Woman standing in a blue open-knit dress

Overhead portrait of a woman resting on a wooden floor

Trust is central to the project. The photographs come from relationships, conversations, and shared time. I want the camera to feel less like a barrier and more like a meeting point between two people. Sometimes the most important part of making the image happens before the camera comes out, through conversation and the feeling of becoming comfortable enough to be seen without performing.

Tatsumi smiling while reclining on a sofa — Tatsumi

Woman reclining on a sofa in a quiet domestic portrait

Woman in a red patterned dress standing among houseplants

Woman reclining in patterned clothing in afternoon light

Woman standing in a backless top with her hands behind her

Woman seated in a white shirt looking toward the window

There is also something personal happening within this process. After fourteen years abroad, I returned to Mexico with a different understanding of myself. I had become accustomed to belonging to more than one place, and returning made me question what home meant when you are no longer exactly the person who left. Through these women and the relationships I have built around them, I have slowly found a way back into my own environment.

Choosing Ourselves therefore became more than a portrait series. It became a record of my own process of reconnecting, while also celebrating the women who inhabit their lives with intention. The project asks what happens when we stop looking for a single definition of femininity and instead allow women to define themselves.

At its heart, the work is about connection. About the people who shape us, the relationships that make us feel at home, and the freedom that comes from choosing how we want to exist. Each portrait is part of an ongoing conversation between the person in front of the camera, the person behind it, and the environment we create together.