The Films That Shaped the Way I See Love

If someone ever wanted to understand me like really understand my personality, I’d tell them to watch three movies.

The first is Step Up (2006). I was only nine when it came out, but something about it stayed with me and never left. It wasn’t just the dancing (though that definitely sparked something in me), it was the feeling of it, the romance, the tension, the way stories could move through people physically and emotionally at the same time. I didn’t realize it then, but that was the beginning of my love for storytelling.

The second is Pretty Woman (1990). This one completely stopped me in my tracks as a teenager. I’d always been told I was an old soul—but watching that movie felt like proof. Like something in me recognized a world I wasn’t born into. The fact that fourteen-year-old me was yearning for Richard Gere, shoulder pads, and high-waisted mom jeans… honestly, it should’ve been studied.

And the third is Dirty Dancing (1987). I don’t even know how to explain what this movie did to me the first time I watched it. It wasn’t just the romance it was the forbiddenness of it all. The way you could feel that they weren’t supposed to choose each other… and did anyway.

But more than that, it was Baby. The way she chooses honesty, even when it would be easier not to. The way she steps into something uncomfortable, stands her ground, and does the right thing. Not for love, but because it’s who she is, and there is so much power in that. It made love feel bold and a little rebellious, but also grounded in integrity. Like it’s not always the easy choice… but it’s the one that changes you, and makes you who you are.

You might ask, why movies?

I don’t think I’ve ever had a simple answer for that. For as long as I can remember I have felt like an old soul, but even old soul isn't really the right word, I think lost soul is better. I've always felt like I didn’t quite belong to just one time, and movies became my way of slipping into different ones. A kind of time travel, in the smallest, most emotional sense. But it’s deeper than that. Movies have always been my escape into someone else’s story… a way to feel things I might never get to feel otherwise.

When cinema is done right, it does this beautiful thing where it pulls you in the same way a book does. You’re not just watching anymore, you’re there. Living it. Feeling it.

The best movies are the ones that end and leave you sitting there with the biggest, most ridiculous smile on your face, like The Breakfast Club, Dirty Dancing, 10 Things I Hate About You.... You’ve spent a little over an hour in someone else’s world, and somehow… you come out of it changed. Like you’ve felt something you didn’t even know you were missing.

When I look back at the movies that shaped me, it’s so easy to see where my personality spills into my photography. I crave storytelling, the kind that feels like a film, not a posed moment frozen in time.

I never want my clients to feel like they have to stop and smile at the camera. I want to feel their story through the lens. I want to see their favorite date night spot, their little inside jokes, the hobbies that light them up. I want to step into their world; into kitchens where cookies are baking and forts are being built, into quiet evenings at home, or out on the water with kayaks drifting under the sun.

That’s the part of photography that matters most to me. Not the smile for the camera—but the smile that happens in the moment, shared with the people who matter most.