While fiddling with the lens on my Nikon and at the same time trying to give off the air of a professional dance photographer, 17-year-old ballerina Augustina Flores Saavedra took flight like a giant, long-legged bird of paradise.
My jaw dropped as she smiled down at me floating two meters above the studio floor. The image that I had just witnessed (and not photographed) was the most beautiful thing that I had ever seen in my life. I looked up to see where my bird of paradise had landed—presumably in a soft cloud in the rafters, preening her feathers.
I had not been long out of Afghanistan and was wondering just how the hell I was going to capture what I had just seen on film. Normally the only bodies that fly through the air in front of me are in torn and bloody pieces. And I am normally hiding and terrified, waiting for the moment to pop out like a snake so I could photograph what remained of the flying corpse and run away.