Claudine emailed me to enquire about having some photos of herself taken. The only request she had was to do the shoot with a full head of hair, looking healthy. You see she was scheduled to undergo surgery, the day after the shoot, to have a tumour removed. The outcome of which would determine if she needed to have chemo again.

I arrived at Claudine’s home, not knowing what to expect, wondering if she’d look ill, or if she would even in fact feel well enough to have photos taken by someone she had never met before. I was amazed by how she looked. She looked healthy, with no signs of the cancerous tumour in her body. She was easy going, confident and so beautiful, even though she had mentioned she was “camera-shy”. We sat in her lounge and she told me about her life, what she had been through and what was going to happen the next day, and about the cancer. We then began shooting. I took so many photos of her while we laughed, and spoke.

Claudine, thank you for contacting me to photograph you the day before your surgery. Here are a few photos to bring a smile to your face this evening and to help with “moving forward”.