From the first stretch of the journey, warm, unhurried, no agenda but the face in front of me. Primera luz: first light. The kind of early frame that taught me to slow down and let a portrait breathe.

This one happened in a backyard. There’s an old wooden fence going gold in the afternoon sun, a tangle of green weeds and grass, and Patty just sat down in the middle of it with her knees pulled up. No posing instructions from me, I didn’t have any good ones yet. She looked off toward something past the frame and the whole thing went quiet.

I love that the light is doing all the heavy lifting here. It rims her hair, warms the fence, makes the overgrown yard look like the nicest set I never built. Sometimes the move is just to put a person somewhere soft and let them forget the camera is there. I’ve been chasing that ever since.