These images are just a part of an idea I’ve been conceptualizing for a year—an ongoingexploration of girlhood expressed through various mediums. Girlhood is a photographicexploration of nostalgia, memory, and the complicated process of growing up as a girl. Theproject began from a personal place: Being a girl and having grown up with a sister, andnow—as a 21-year-old—I nanny for three little girls. Through them, I often catch glimpsesof my own childhood. Playing dress up, dancing in the living room, or pointing out theircrushes in the school year book— it mirrors memories I thought I had outgrown, and I findmyself reliving pieces of a past that feels both distant and startlingly close.

The images capture the sweetness of girlhood—its innocence, joy, and free spirit. While alsocapturing a quieter sadness: a temporal longing and ache in realizing that those years aregone. Growing up means becoming aware of realities that complicate the simplicity ofchildhood: the pressures, inequalities and expectations that creep in as girls becomewomen. Drawing from Alex Prager’s cinematic approach, I tried to treat some of thephotos as if they were pulled from a larger scene, using deliberate lighting and editing techniques to heighten the emotional tone.

Girlhood is both a love letter and a mourning. An attempt to remember the pure joy ofthose early years while confronting the complexities that come with leaving them behind.