I was wondering this week why I am so drawn to taking pictures of Kelly Nolan, and I think the answer is that she is one of the very few people I know who are truly authentic. She has done many things – even worked in state politics at the capital in Albany – but she seems to have found herself with her husband, daughter, family and community, in her job at the Bog, a local biker and community tavern.

Kelly photographs so well because she is so genuine, and it is true that the camera does not lie, a good portrait lens is the best lie detector on the planet. Kelly knows who she is, likes who she is, and speaks the truth. C.G. Jung wrote that the privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are, and Kelly knows who she truly is and is at ease with her self and soul.

Sensitive people are often derided as weak or damaged. But intensity is not a symptom of weakness, it is the hallmark of the truly compassionate and alive.

The psychologist Brene Brown says that authenticity is a collection of choices that we have to make every day. It is, she writes, about the choice to show up for life and be real. The choice to let our true selves be seen, and that, I think, is what I love to take pictures of Kelly, they inspire me and others.

Not too long ago, I realized that I had been lying all of my life, to myself, to my family, to my friends, to the world beyond my troubled and broken self. I swore that I would never lie again, that I would be authentic, that I would learn who I really was and become who I truly am.

I had no idea how difficult that decision would be, how upsetting and enraged it would make so many people around me, how much it would shatter what I understood my life to be. A therapist warned me that no one around me would recognize me or know me, my life would come apart and would need to be  rebuilt. Everything would change, my ordinary world would collapse around me and vanish. And so it was.

She was prescient, this therapist. I set out on this painful path to be authentic, no matter what it cost me. And it cost me almost everything that I had.

I swore I would never lie again, to myself or anyone else. That I would stand in my truth and respect the truth and dignity of others, however different they were from me.

There is nothing, I think, more beautiful in all of the world than seeing a person take the leap of faith, set out on the hero journey, show up for life by  being themselves. By speaking their truth, finding their voice.

It isn’t for me to say whether or not I am authentic, it is really for others to judge. People know it when they see it.

I am on the path, I feel stronger and clearer and more at peace that I ever was or dreamed of being. I stop a thousand times a day, and say, “is this what I feel? Is this who I am? Is this the truth for me?”

And then, I know where I am. True authenticity only happens when we present our true, authentic, flawed and yearning selves to the world. Our sense of belonging can never be greater than our own self-respect and acceptance.

And it can never be smaller.