Daytona is a Virginia based portrait photographer specializing in boudoir photography on 35mm film. Her love affair with portrait photography began over a decade ago and she has since focused in on creating timeless, irreverent photographs of beautiful, powerful women. It’s her longtime dream actualized to have found a career path that is creatively fulfilling and truly empowering for women. Daytona lives in a dreamy apartment in a converted colonial house with her sweet dog-son Malcolm and she’s forever thrifting, cooking, or napping. 

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Here is Daytona, Unraveled…

What inspired your art?

WOMEN! We really are so magical and powerful and the way we exist in the world as individuals and alongside each other can be so beautiful. I knew that my creativity thrived when I knew I was helping the woman in front of my camera step into her innate power, and that professional portraits can help us recognize how gorgeous we really are. I really grounded into those things when I was going through a low low point with my self esteem and felt completely outside of my body. Seeing photos brought me back home to myself.  Also there is a reason the female form is an eternally inspiring motif in all of art’s history- give me all the softness! I’m also consistently inspired by sunlight, the ocean, lazy sundays, Matisse, being in love, and MYSELF. 

What do you shoot with? Camera body and favorite lens?

Canon EOS 3, Canon 50mm f/1.2L and 35mm Kodak Portra 400

What other ways do you express your creativity?

Writing, cooking & decorating my apartment 

How do you de-stress at the end of the day?

If I’m feeling incredibly stressed- I make time for a hard workout to get all of that nervous energy out. On any other given day, when I’m done with work I’ll walk my pup at golden hour with no phone, completely veg out with a show and some Thai food, meet a friend for happy hour, or take a long bath & read a book. I love self care and all the ways of practicing it.

What kind of music do you listen to while editing?

I don’t! I don’t spend a ton of time editing and I think my entire life is so noisy that nothing but background noise is a great way for me to focus. 

What is your favorite book?

I can’t choose one. A Little Life is my favorite novel (LOTS of trigger warnings though. It’s an incredibly tragic book). You are a Badass at Making Money should be required reading for every business owner and it single-handedly changed my life. Marina Abramović’s autobiography: Walk Through Walls, will inspire your creative process in a real way. 

Name one movie that inspires you.

The Florida Project

How do you handle self-doubt or creative slumps?

I journal through self doubt to figure out exactly where the pain point originates and go through the process of “unblocking” it. I make sure my inner circle is full of people who are achieving a lot in their own life and are really in my corner and believe I can make anything happen. When I’m creatively slumped, that usually means I really need to rest. And so I allow myself to pump the brakes to recharge. I put hard boundaries around my work days so I’m not burning myself out. 

What has been the most difficult part of your creative journey?

Getting the guts to put myself out there. It was really vulnerable for me to start this business and to be on the internet essentially saying “this is what I want. I want this so badly and it’s so obvious and aching and completely undermines the nonchalant cool-girl vibe I’ve been cultivating all of my adult life.” Having to build and market a brand around myself and my heart’s work really triggered a deep imposter syndrome. Also: when getting into the spiritual work of money, manifestation, etc, for a long time I resisted the fact that my own anger, negativity, arrogance and resent was the sole reason I was broke, stuck, unhappy, uninspired etc. I had an external locus of control and was convinced my circumstances created my energy, but I eventually learned that my energy created my circumstances, but. That was incredibly humbling and empowering to realize I was responsible, and therefore I was able to change everything. 

Who is one of your favorite photographers?

Heather Hazzan

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