I'm Standing on the Threshold of the Biggest Change

• Feature article •

I reached a point in my life when I had to ask:

Who am I?

And where am I going?

I imagine this happens to everyone a few times. In a woman's life, two such milestones are almost certain: marriage and having a child.

I decided to begin from the outside.

I wanted to see who I was.

A reflection in the mirror was not enough.

I wanted to remember this period later — this moment when I stood at a crossroads.

I knew my appearance was about to change. I would never look exactly the same again, and that was perfectly all right.

That was when the decision formed in me: I wanted to see the real Woman I was — outside and inside.

I wanted to take part in an artistic nude photo shoot.

I searched for a long time. My partner's opinion mattered too. I needed to find someone to whom I could entrust myself completely.

I found only one place where it was possible to meet the artist personally in advance and talk informally, without taboos.

I thought: I have to take this opportunity.

What I did not expect was that I would leave the studio after the conversation already feeling like a different person.

For days I wondered whether I could actually do it.

The photographer himself was not the issue. I was fighting my own fear of who I might see in the images.

At the same time, I very much wanted a record of myself from the period before motherhood — something I could look back on in the future.

I arrived at my first artistic nude session incredibly excited.

I had no idea what to expect.

It is a kind of trust exercise that I think only people who have been in a similar situation can fully understand.

Perhaps I should say modestly that taking off my clothes in front of a complete stranger was difficult.

But Norbi handled the situation so naturally and intuitively, understood so precisely what I wanted, what was happening inside me and what kind of milestone I was approaching, that with words alone he dissolved almost every inhibition within minutes.

I left the studio feeling incredibly free and relaxed, with a level of satisfaction with myself that I had not experienced for a long time.

I felt:

Here is the Woman I had been waiting for.

The one who had always been inside me and had now come back to the surface.

In fact, I did not feel as if there were only one woman inside me. It was almost as though every sense and every possible self had taken physical form.

It is difficult to describe.

I suddenly wanted to experience everything at once, as if I had missed something and now needed to make up for lost time.

During the stay-at-home and home-office period, feeding even one personality was difficult, never mind several.

But I did not want to let this feeling disappear.

I had to experience it.

I wanted to show this side of myself to the world, because the first series had become so intimate that it belonged only to my partner and me.

That was when I decided to go back for an outdoor portfolio shoot.

Barely a month later, I was standing in front of Norbi again — this time clothed.

I imagined several different outfits in which I could let different sides of my personality loose.

I really only wanted a few simple, direct photographs — almost as though a friend had taken them casually on the street, except with a professional result.

The way the photographs were created exceeded all my expectations.

I only knew what I wanted to wear and what I hoped the images would express.

We were outside in the streets around Móricz Zsigmond Square.

No studio. No reflector. No tripod. No crew — or whatever else people normally have.

Just a small walk around the studio.

The photographer, me, and the people passing on the street.

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The best photographs of my life were made in those two sessions — both the nude series and the street photographs.

I love looking at them.

Part of me wants to show them to the whole world.

I think the destiny of a photograph is to be looked at the way I look at mine.

Art photography – details.

Part of the BANHALMI ecosystem

For the professional context and practical side of portrait photography, visit the BANHALMI professional website. Related art series, books and exhibitions are preserved in the BANHALMI ART archive.