ALL THAT SHE IS, I AM TOO

BACKSTORY 09 FEB 2022

Been going through boxes of old files this week and I came across a photograph of Liv that I took a few years ago.

I asked Liv to photograph her because I found her so beautiful I could hardly take my eyes off her. I wanted to see if I could show her sweetness. Her delight. A delight and sweetness I remembered from early childhood and had lost, and wished I still had.

The version I made all those years ago is different to this one I'm showing you now. This is the 2022 rendition. I've cropped it from the original, come closer in. Focussed on her hands and eyes and the set of her mouth. It's got more texture and a black vertical line running through it, because no doubt that despite her joy, she's had much that's tough in her life. This new photograph, it's less of a 'portrait' and more a feeling. More an image from a dream.

I want to cry when I look at it.

This picture expresses so much of who for so long I wanted to be. I wanted to be that tender. I wanted to be able to experience life with her kind of wide-eyed openness. But I couldn't then. Ever. I was too scared. Too tightly wound. Too far in the shadows.

These days, she's closer. I mean, I'm closer to her. I'm able to experience the joy, to feel the delight. To allow myself to be her kind of vulnerable. Not always. Not often. But sometimes. And that's good enough for me.

I'm going to blow this photograph up very very large and have it on my studio wall. For two reasons. First is that all the textural gestural qualiites in the photograph will shine when it's printed at scale. Second and most important reason is because I want her right up in my face. I want to not be able to ignore her.

Because this most beautiful young woman is represents the kind of person I want to be when I am being my best and biggest self. Tender. Sweet. Able to experience delight. Able to be vulnerable AF. Wide-eyed and open and joyful and playful and beautiful, and not being ironic in the slightest.

This photograph helps me remember that all that she is, I am too.
We all are her.
If only in moments.