The first portrait
I remember feeling convinced that each moment on the trail was the moment.
Someone would come into view and I’d feel that internal signal to stop, to say something, to ask. And then I wouldn’t. I’d tell myself I’d do it with the next person. Then the next. The trail kept moving forward, and so did I.
That pattern repeated itself for most of the day. Eight miles of passing people and negotiating internally. The hesitation wasn’t dramatic, but it was persistent. It felt less like fear and more like friction. I didn’t want to interrupt someone’s time outside. I didn’t want to impose. I didn’t yet know how to step into those encounters without feeling like I was asking for something I hadn’t earned. By the time we reached the latter part of the hike, the weight of that indecision was noticeable. Not because anything had gone wrong, but because nothing had happened yet. The day was full of movement, but no exchange.
Near the end of the trail, we met Megan. She had a calm presence and an ease about her that didn’t feel guarded or rushed. We started talking in the way conversations sometimes do outdoors, without much setup. About the trail. About where we were headed. About nothing particularly urgent.
When I finally asked if I could make her portrait, my nervousness caught up with me. Instead of slowing down and letting the environment carry more of the image, I defaulted to familiarity. I made a headshot. It wasn’t the environmental portrait I had imagined when I first started walking that morning. At the time, I registered that as a kind of compromise. Not a failure, but not quite what I had intended either. The photograph reflected where I was, not where I thought I wanted to be. Looking back, that feels important.
On the drive home, something unexpected surfaced. I realized I was more excited to see the portraits I’d made of Megan than any of the landscape photographs from the hike. The scenery had been expansive and beautiful, but it didn’t linger in the same way. The portrait did. That realization didn’t come with clarity about what the project was or where it might lead. It wasn’t a decision point. It was more like a quiet alignment. A sense that paying attention to people, and to the moments that happen when you slow down enough to ask, held more energy for me than moving quickly through places I already knew how to photograph.
At the time, I didn’t yet have language for environmental portraiture, or for the role that place might play alongside a person. I also didn’t understand how much my professional habits would shape those early images. I only knew that the exchange mattered, even if the photograph wasn’t fully resolved. That first portrait didn’t establish a framework. It didn’t define the project. It didn’t answer any big questions. What it did was make something visible that I hadn’t noticed before. The difference between movement and attention. The difference between covering ground and staying with a moment long enough to see what it offered.
I didn’t know who the next person would be, or when I’d feel ready to ask again. I only knew that I wanted to keep paying attention to that feeling on the drive home, and to see what would happen if I let the work grow from there.
