- April 23, 2024
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Ariel Fulmer of Ariel Baldwin Photography
A senior photo shoot by Ariel Fulmer shows her signature high-fashion style of photography. Courtesy photo by Ariel Baldwin Photography
A photo Ariel Fulmer took of a dancer in Washington Oaks Gardens State Park. Courtesy photo by Ariel Baldwin Photography
Ariel Fulmer of Ariel Baldwin Photography
A maternity photoshoot at a photography conference shows the signature dress movement shot Ariel Fulmer likes to capture. Courtesy photo by Ariel Baldwin Photography
A family photo shoot Ariel Fulmer took in Flagler Beach. Courtesy photo by Ariel Baldwin Photography
During a 20-minute train ride from an all-day modeling shoot to her hotel in San Francisco, Ariel Fulmer came to a life-changing realization.
“I can’t do this anymore,” Ariel recalled saying to her husband, Jeff. Her whole body ached as she sat in the train. “I just don’t understand why I’m in so much pain.” Tears flowed down her cheeks. They had been bottled up for so long.
She said Jeff tried to comfort her, but wasn’t sure the role he should play: to push her to continue her dream of modeling — despite the physical pain it caused on her body — or to make her stop and find a new passion.
“This is what he did say, ‘If it’s hurting you too much, you need to do something that’s not as painful for you,’” Ariel recalled.
It was then that her modeling career came to a halt after 10 years of dedication. She was only in her early 20s at the time, but she had been diagnosed with postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome at age 15 (soon after she began her modeling career), and she knew she had to stop pushing her body’s limits — otherwise she’d likely develop arthritis at an early age, doctors warned.
* * *
The pain Ariel felt while modeling wasn’t new to her. As a teenager, she was a dancer at an arts school. But she was having trouble, despite her talent.
“Even though I was dancing every day and doing exactly what everybody else was doing, I was having a hard time keeping up,” she said. “My heart rate was out of control; I was out of breath and winded.”
Her first diagnosis at 15 in part explained the symptoms she felt during modeling and dancing. But her second diagnosis at age 23 identified the cause: Doctors told her she had Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a genetic disorder that affects the connective tissues in the body.
“There was always this thing in the back of my mind like, ‘Why am I hurting?’ and I always thought it was because of my dance background, that I had pushed myself too hard and have dancer’s back and dancer’s feet. I always pushed it to the side because I thought it was from my dance background.”
But it wasn’t from countless hours of dance. It was something she’s had since birth that’s still altering her life today, at age 28.
“I’m so young, but I’m at this point in my life where I have to make decisions based on my body and my health, and I’m only in my 20s,” Ariel said. “So, that in itself is really tough.”
* * *
That train ride in San Francisco closed a door for Ariel. But a new passion was waiting for her.
“That was a turning point for me, that day,” Ariel said. “That’s when I started thinking what are things can I do? I grew into photography.”
Her background as a model gives her insight as to how to pose her clients, and to manage lighting, fashion and more, she said.
“I know what it’s like to be in front of the camera, so I can sympathize with my clients,” Ariel said.
She’s been a professional photographer with Ariel Baldwin Photography for about the last four years. She and her husband moved to Palm Coast in June 2018 for a change in weather. She said Florida’s natural beauty has encouraged her to focus on outdoor photo shoots, including at the rose-covered and tree-canopied Washington Oaks Gardens State Park and the sandy shores of Flagler Beach.
In addition to maternity, pet, family, couple and senior shoots, Ariel hopes to hold a photo shoot locally to recognize others with invisible illnesses. Before moving to Palm Coast, she held one in Pennsylvania, where she photographed others who are going through something no one else can see.
“Raising awareness for an invisible illness is super important,” she said. “And people just assume, ‘Oh, she looks healthy so she is.’ But really, there are a lot of struggles with invisible illnesses in general. I think for people to express themselves in an artistic way and bring awareness to people is just super important.”
* * *
Ariel’s illness is invisible to others, but it’s not something she hides.
A large shaded tattoo on her right arm details her story. Mother nature takes the form of a tree, with branches that stretch to the sky and roots that ground into a rib cage with an opening for a key.
“This whole upper part is like my acceptance of my illness,” Ariel said, describing her tattoo. “So, this represents mother nature, and she’s hanging the heart off the tree, but it should be in the rib cage. And this girl, she’s holding the key to the rib cage and she represents a greater force. It’s like a greater force has my heart.”
She’s accepted that she’ll never get to model again, that she’ll have to use a wheelchair if she walks more than three miles, that she’s in pain even when she conducts photo shoots, and that she’d be at high risk for complications if she were to get pregnant.
But the Fulmers still want to expand their family, without putting Ariel or a potential baby at risk. They plan to adopt one day, she said. Not having a biological child was hard for Ariel to accept. She said it’s something she always wanted, but she’s happy to give a child in need a home one day.
“You have to mourn the loss of the life that you thought you would have,” Ariel said. “And it takes a while. It took me until probably this time in my life when I could accept the fact that things are going to be different for me.”
