When I finished writing my last journal entry, I realized I'd left something out.
I told you why imagination matters to me, but I never really told you what it feels like to live inside it.
Lately, I've found myself slipping back into that familiar place more often than I have in years, and I don't think it's a coincidence. As Studio Gemini Photography continues to grow, so does the amount of time I spend dreaming before I ever pick up a camera. Photography has become only one part of the process. More and more, I find myself becoming a world builder.
It usually starts with something impossibly small. A thought.
Sometimes it's a painting tucked away in a museum catalogue that I can't stop thinking about. Sometimes it's a line from a novel, an old folktale, a piece of music, or the way evening light catches the branches of a tree and, for just a moment, makes them feel enchanted. Occasionally, it's nothing more than a question that appears while I'm making coffee in the morning.
What would the Lady of the Lake look like if she stepped out of the water today?
How would Persephone dress if she ruled the underworld in winter rather than spring?
What if this flower was embodied in human form?
The questions rarely arrive fully formed. They linger for days, sometimes weeks, asking to be explored. Instead of brushing them aside, I've started following them.
That's where the real fun begins.
Suddenly, my search history becomes delightfully unhinged. One afternoon I'm researching Baroque and Renaissance art. The next I'm comparing antlers, antique keys, vintage lanterns, velvet ribbon, dried moss, botanical illustrations, Victorian mourning jewelry, or wondering whether a particular shade of green feels more like an enchanted forest or a forgotten kingdom. I lose entire evenings sketching ideas in notebooks, rearranging props around the studio, hunting through marketplace and resell apps, scrolling endlessly through Pinterest boards, or imagining how a single crown might tell an entirely different story if paired with weathered leather instead of silk.
The camera hasn't even entered the conversation yet and wont for a while.
That part surprises people.
Most assume photography begins when the shutter clicks, but for me, the photograph is simply the final page of a story that's already been unfolding for weeks. Long before anyone steps into the studio, I've already wandered through forests that don't exist, explored crumbling castles I've never visited, and stood in candlelit halls that live only in my imagination. By the time we begin creating together, I've been playing pretend for quite a while.
And if I'm honest...I've never been happier.
Somewhere between designing sets, collecting curious objects, sewing together costume pieces, weathering props so they look as though they've survived a hundred years, and asking impossible questions simply because they're interesting, I've realized something I didn't expect.
I didn't stop playing pretend when I became an adult. I just found a profession that encouraged me to keep doing it.
That's one of the greatest gifts photography has given me. Not simply the ability to create beautiful portraits, but permission to remain curious. Permission to wonder. Permission to build worlds that exist for a single afternoon before disappearing again, leaving behind only the memories we made and the photographs that remind us they were, for a little while, beautifully real.
Maybe that's why I smile every time someone messages me with an idea that begins with the words, "This might sound crazy..."
Because my favorite response has become, "Tell me more."
Those are almost always the beginnings of the stories worth telling.
What Would You Imagine?
Maybe you've had an idea tucked away in the back of your mind, too. A character you've always wanted to become, a story you wish you could step inside, or simply an image of yourself that doesn't quite exist yet anywhere except your imagination.
It doesn't need to be fully formed. You don't need to know what the set should look like, where we'll find the costume, or how any of it could possibly come together. That's part of the fun.
Bring me the beginning of an idea—even the one that feels a little impossible—and we'll see where our imaginations take us.