Wahclella Falls Maternity Session | Columbia River Gorge, Oregon
Before we started shooting, Brianna told me — half joking, fully confident — that she was going to be in Vogue one day.
Wahclella Falls sits at the end of a two-mile loop trail in the Columbia River Gorge, tucked into a narrow basalt canyon where the walls close in around you and the waterfall drops straight down into a misty pool below. It is one of my absolute favorite places in the Pacific Northwest — dramatic and ancient and completely alive in a way that makes every photograph feel like it was already waiting to be taken. The moss-covered canyon walls, the roar of the water, the light that filters through in golden shafts — it's a location that demands very little of you because it does so much on its own.
Brianna hiked in wearing a golden yellow lace gown and looked like she had been styled for an editorial shoot in the pages of a major magazine. Because, as it turns out, she had. After I submitted this portfolio, one of her maternity photos from this session was published by Vogue. I found out and immediately FaceTimed her to catch her reaction in real time. It was everything. Every single thing.
She stood at the base of that waterfall — mist in the air, golden dress pooling on the rocks around her, one hand resting on her belly — and she was completely, utterly at home in front of a camera. Not performing. Just present. That's the rarest thing to photograph, and she had it in abundance.
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