HER
"Her" is an ongoing series that challenges the narrow ways society defines womanhood by revealing the beautiful complexity that exists within every woman's story. In a culture that reduces women to simple categories, this project creates space for the multifaceted truth of feminine experience; the quiet power, the creative force, the healing journey, or the sacred spaces we create for ourselves. Each portrait emerges from intimate conversations about what makes these women feel most connected to themselves and their own definitions of femininity. Through genuine dialogue and careful observation, I capture women in the environments where they feel most authentically themselves. This series celebrates women exactly as they are: complex beings who contain multitudes, who find power in both vulnerability and strength, who create meaning in the everyday moments of their lives.
"Her" is my response to witnessing women diminish themselves to fit into prescribed boxes. These portraits honor the full spectrum of feminine experience. Each woman's story reveals the inadequacy of society's limited definitions of what it means to be female. Each image serves as visual evidence that real women, in all their messy and magnificent complexity, are infinitely more compelling than any narrow narrative society tries to impose. Through this work, I hope to create a visual legacy that reminds women of their inherent worth and multifaceted beauty, encouraging them to bring their complete, undiminished selves into every space they enter.
MONIQUE COLEMAN
“This is very much commemorating my sacred space that has held me, my dreams, and has incubated me. My home has created a safe space for me to feel like I can spread my wings and flourish again, while letting my space be a reflection of my femininity.
I think, my home is actually probably the most feminine thing about me. Yeah, that I created my own little kind of fairy kingdom with all these little pockets and places to just, like, flutter around.”
- Monique Coleman (on healing & femininity)
RASPY RIVERA
“I feel the most beautiful when I'm in the process of creation. That's when I truly feel limitless and whenever I'm in those moments there's this non-judgmental movement and surrender and really leaning into my intuition. What women are as a whole is just so abundant. It's so powerful. It's so bold. There's not this You know, once I get here, I'm a woman. Once I do this, once I've accomplished this, I'm feminine. I always wanted to exemplify or create something that honored imperfections in women. I think the more laugh lines, the better.”
- Raspy Rivera
HEATHER
FRENCH
“I love being a woman. I don't feel bad for men because they're men, but I feel really lucky that I get to be one. It's funny because it's such an important part of my life, but I've always really identified with men too, because that's something that I love. People are confused with my sexuality sometimes, which is really flattering. But femininity is just something definitely I was born with. I like to explore everything because I love everything.
I feel most connected to myself in nature. I really don't need anybody else and I feel super connected to myself and to everything around me. My sister passed away eight days before my birthday, and so my husband said, “What do you want for your birthday? And I said, when we were taking care of her in San Francisco, everyone had one of these little fences with the arch, and I said, I want one of those. And so he built me one, And so he built me one, and so it's sort of like a little garden that's dedicated to her.
- Heather French
We kind of have something that men want whether they admit it or not. Your sexual power or your physical power or your mental power, we can be really quiet about it, or we can be really loud about it. But if you want something done really well, that women can do it really, really well and they're not going to be show-offs about it. I think women are used to being criticized, so they work really twice as hard. I really do feel that way a lot of times.
-Heather French