hello, i’m anna
i am a freelance photographer based in the midwest. i have been making photographs personally since childhood, and professionally since 2011.
being a human is quite a journey; filled with little moments and days that make up our lives. the multitude of emotions we have are endless; hope, fear, joy, chaos, sorrow, apathy, inspiration, anger, nostalgia, love. within each, a myriad of degrees and variations. combinations; paradoxes. you and i, we are complicated creatures. yet - to simply exist is pretty magical in itself.
i want to take photos that help you remember how it felt.
i want to document what it means to be alive. come as you are. everybody has a story worth telling.
many people shy away from the camera because of the standards society has placed on us as humans to look a certain way, act a certain way, feel a certain way. let’s abandon societal standards and pressures. who is society anyway? those standards are bullshit. you are allowed to create your own rules — or lack thereof. when it comes to photographs, i believe trends aren’t worth following if they aren’t true to your heart. social media likes and comments and engagement do not equal good photos. to me, a good photo simply means that it has an impact on your soul. it digs deeper than it does wider, encompassing the sweet longing nectar that is nostalgia. or joy. or hope. or sadness. or love. or any interpretation you may have, conjured from your own life experiences.
when i question my why, i like to remind myself of my true passion: documenting moments for people, to bring them back to a moment in time. if instagram disappeared tomorrow, the earth would keep spinning and life would move on. the photos that last and make an impact probably aren’t the ones that are posed by the photographer. it is probably the moments where the people in the photos didn’t even know their photo was being taken, or where they were so caught up in the moment they were living in that they couldn’t care less whether their hair was perfect or not. knowing how to pose people in a way that looks good on the tiny little screens of our phones is a skill of sorts, sure, but not one that i specialize in. i am not an advertising photographer. i am a people photographer. i photograph the tangible and intangible; the people, the places, the things, and the feelings. i believe my skills lie not in staging a scene to photograph, but in quietly observing people and their quirks. their intricacies. how they interact with one another. in keeping my eyes wide open and documenting the beauty that you already are, that you already have. i promise you don’t need me to tell you what to do. all i ask is for you to allow yourself to be seen. you deserve to be documented as you are. who you are is enough.
outside of editorialized work or standard headshots, if i tell someone how to pose for a photo, i get a nasty feeling deep in my gut. it doesn’t feel right. because it isn’t the truth. i don’t want to be the director of your scene. i simply want to document it. because you and i and the way you show your people you love them and your dog that nudges you for dinner at 5pm sharp and your favorite pair of jeans that are stained a bit on the left thigh and your beat up old honda civic are already enough. can you imagine a world where nothing was altered for what was believed to be a “better” appearance? where everyone was accepted for who they are on the inside and the outside? they didn’t use photoshop to change bodies? they didn’t band-aid tool the chocolate ice cream stain out of her shirt? they didn’t face swap all the smiling faces from different shots to be together in one photo, as if it wasn’t actually a totally chaotic moment? where all bodies were deemed beautiful as they are, where the stain on your shirt from that day last summer reminds you of sharing an ice cream cone on your third date with your current girlfriend while sitting in the sunshine on a crooked wooden bench outside of the ice cream parlor, where a few people in the group photo are blinking and the baby is crying and ope - i think grandpa is rolling his eyes at your little cousin that farted and now all the younger cousins are laughing or maybe grandpa was the one that farted and is trying to blame it on charlie.
isn’t this what makes us all uniquely ourselves?
though it is hard to shake off the pressure that inevitably caves in on us at times, there is freedom in vulnerability; to be seen. freedom in finding and being your truest self — no matter how often your self evolves. no matter how many times you lose yourself and have to work to find yourself again.
i don’t have it all figured out. i am a work in progress. i will probably accidentally totally contradict these words at some point. i will do my best to keep reminding myself of my ethos and returning back to it when i stray.
i do know that i dearly value humanity, i dearly value your story, and i want to tell the truth.
if you connect with my portfolio and/or my words here, please reach out if you have something in mind that you would like for me to photograph.
thank you for reading —
anna