In The Shadows of Her Eyes

I have been photographing people for 20+ years. Over time, I have learned that a portrait can show much more than what someone chooses to reveal to the world.
I study expressions, gestures, posture, and the quieter emotions underneath them. Happiness and sadness are only two emotions that we often identify. Every person carries contradictions, questions, memories, confidence, and uncertainty. A story that is uniquely their own.
So I am beginning a new portrait series.
I will share photographs of people I have photographed over the years, without names, accompanied by short stories inspired by what I see in them. Some details may be real. Some may be imagined.
And none of the stories will have a definite ending.
I will leave that part to you.
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The first story: "In the Shadows of Her Eyes." 
What do you think happens next?

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In the Shadows of Her Eyes

Everyone always thought she was smart.
She was almost valedictorian, but turned out to be the salutatorian -the second-highest-ranked in her class. She earned the grades that her teachers and the parents expected. She understood concepts quickly, and eventually attended Rice University to study computer science.

From the outside, her path looked clear.
The academics were only one part of her. She drew and sketched. She wrote poetry. She played guitar, occasionally played sports, and sometimes seemed just as happy disappearing behind a book as standing confidently in front of the world.
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There was always more happening inside her than people could see.
Not because she wanted to challenge every answer, but because answers rarely seemed complete.
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Computer science appealed to one side of her mind. She became interested in the strange machine inside all of us. “The brain.”
That curiosity, or maybe ambition, eventually led her to Carnegie Mellon, where she began working toward a PhD in Computational neuroscience.
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But the more deeply she went into science, the less certain she became.
Some days she felt completely sure of herself. She could stand in a room, defend an idea, analyze a problem, and see possibilities others had missed.

​Other days, she doubted everything.
Her work.
Her choices.
The future.
Some days, that uncertainty frightened her. On other days, it seemed unusually freeing.
And perhaps that is where the story really begins. "In The Shadows of Her Eyes."
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