This Is Rachael

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I didn’t come to this work through theory or trend.

I came to it through learning - early - what it feels like to make yourself smaller to avoid standing out.

When I was a child, I was a dancer.

Every year we performed in concerts, and one year a costume required our hair to be curled for the first half of the show - and then teased into a wild, fuzzy ponytail for the second.

I hated it.

I ran from the adults backstage trying to do my hair. I didn’t want to look different. I didn’t want to stand out. 

Eventually, I was cornered - and one woman said something that stayed with me far longer than the performance itself:

“You’ll be the only one who looks different. You’ll stand out.”

I gave in.

Not because I wanted to - but because I was afraid of what it meant not to.

That moment taught me something quietly dangerous:
that standing out came with risk - and that blending in felt safer.

That belief followed me into adulthood.

Years later, photography became the place where that pattern broke.

I chose to be seen before I felt ready.

I chose visibility before confidence arrived.

I chose expression over approval.

And each time I did, something irreversible happened.

Not because of the images -
but because my body learned something my mind already knew:

That being seen doesn’t break you.
That standing out doesn’t make you unsafe.
That your edge doesn’t need permission.

Over time, I noticed something else.

Confident women began telling me the things they didn’t say out loud elsewhere.

The curiosities they hadn’t followed.

The edges they wanted to explore but didn’t yet feel safe to.

Not because I pushed -
but because I didn’t flinch.

The Indelible Experience was created from that place.

Not to make women bold for the sake of it -
but to create the conditions where they can stop managing themselves and start inhabiting who they already are.

I don’t over-edit.
I don’t rush.
And I don’t ask women to become someone else.

I guide this work because I understand the moment right before a woman decides to stop hiding -
and I know how to hold her there without trying to control the outcome.

This isn’t about looking powerful.

It’s about trusting yourself enough to stand out -
and no longer needing to smooth yourself back down afterwards.

I don’t guide women into confidence.

I walk with them as they remember they were never meant to disappear.