I first shot with Eliana in December of 2025. I wouldn’t say I was in a creative funk when she reached out to shoot. On the contrary, I was teeming with ideas that wanted to claw their way out of me, but I had let myself get rundown by fear and doubt and frustrations; I felt like I had no idea why or for who or what I was doing what I was doing.

I almost cancelled the shoot. Beyond a vague idea of a meadow, a floral dress, and a wannabe horse, I didn’t feel like I had a strong vision for our test shoot or my career. And while I knew I wanted to shoot Eliana in a meadow and I knew I wanted a horse to be there, the creative funk I was moving through had sunk its teeth into me so hard we called it depression and it had rendered me unable to think of how to source a horse (which rhymes and is actually pretty easy to do in parts of San Diego county).

I moved through that fear and uncertainty and showed up at the agreed upon meadow, which was really just a patch of undeveloped land on the side of the road to meet Eliana for our shoot. I felt clunky and awkward, like the kid who shows up in the middle of the school year.