The Moments Between.

I've been attempting to impose some form of order on the chaos that is my photography. I have a hard drive overflowing with folders within folders within folders with little organization save for the most fundamental. So, here I am, inspired by a close friend of mine who has years more work, and hundreds more gigabytes to wade through than I, to collect together the best of the best in one single folder. In doing so I can hopefully avoid the sinking, heavy feeling that inevitably forms in the pit of my stomach whenever someone asks to see a selection of my work; no more trudging through thousands of pictures to find the few sparkling gems that demonstrate my vision and ability, instead, a quick click on the special folder and there they are.

In pursuit of this shared goal, my friend and I sit at a large desk in the middle of the room, our laptops back to back like an ABBA video, our fingers feverishly working a mouse, alternately building and smoking joints, regularly making yet more coffee and constantly muttering to ourselves like lost map readers.

After three days of this I can't say in all honesty that I am any closer to the shore but what I have discovered is a wealth of old modeling photographs that I had forgotten existed. These images evoke a strange but nonetheless pleasurable feeling within me. I see the woman in the photographs and I remember how she was experiencing an awakening; an awakening of her true identity, that the woman that she always wanted to be was, in fact, the woman she was. The first year and a half of modeling, when I worked exclusively with one photographer, was a fantastical adventure that changed my life. Where I am now, who I am now is a direct result of those countless Monday night sessions . They were my therapy; albeit a therapy that included at least two bottles of good wine and the eternal discussion of ever new and interesting ways to tie me up. We would eat, drink, smoke, talk and photograph our way through to the early hours of the morning and I always left the shoot with a lighter step than that which I arrived with.

And mingled in with the glamorous, staged images are pictures taken in those moments between shots, the casual snaps taken during conversation and cigarette breaks. It is in these photographs that I see the love, the respect and the wonder that exists between two friends. These are the images that show me my own self through the eyes of another.

(All photographs copyright of Darktess)