You are an encyclopedia, and I am curious. You are mischevious, and I am your victim.
You are the waves, and I am the shore. You are kind, and I am blessed.
You are bourbon, and I am beaujolais. You are from New Jersey, and I am in New Jersey.
You are my future little old man, and I am one happy little lady. You are the best thing that ever happened to me, and I am a family man now.
You are an instigator, and I am your backup. You are colorblind, and I am scared to get a tattoo.
You are a rock star sex slave and I am a wild Cleopatran love tigris. You are fervent, and I am shaking my head.
You are my bearded prince, and I am happy ever after. (and Harvey is a monkey). You are a prize to be won day after day, and I am a work in progress.
You are dr. dre, and I am snoop. You are a bartender, and I am a detective.
You are often wrong, and I am always right. You are a man without a colon, and I have no hair.
You are stubborn, and I am persistent. You are incredible, and I am so lucky.
You are grassfed, and I am not. You are a 38D, and I am a sports bra.
You are ____, and I am ____.
2010
When I met her, I often imagined her morning routine—what she listened to as she put on her makeup, where she sat while she took her coffee, what window she looked out to check the days weather. She was the hero of the story; the tiny details imagined in my narrative like a novel in my head.
I begin shooting each of my subjects for this project with these thoughts stirring in my mind. Shortly after I married, I began thinking about how we navigate our shared lives and spaces together, and what it means for couples to share their worlds daily. How does that experience of sharing inform our daily routines? What transpires when the things we used to do on our own become shared moments? When what we once imagined becomes an intimate reality?
I ask my subjects where they spend the majority of their time together in their homes and/or what might be an important shared space for them. Each interpretation offers a different, personal context with its own set of details and terms. I also ask them to fill in the following sentence, which will be used as titles for their portraits: You are _______, and I am ________.
“You are Stubborn, and I am Persistent. You are Incredible, I am so lucky.”
“You are a bearded prince, and I am happy ever after.”
“You are fervent, and I am shaking my head. You are a rockstar sex slave and I am a wild Cleopatran love tigris.”
“You are grass-fed, and I am not. You are a 38D, and I am a sports bra.”
Because there is no one answer for such a simple sentence, I have found that this “fill in the blank” exercise contributes to the rich and complex story each image holds, both on its own and in relationship to one another. The answers have been honest, funny, compelling and mundane. They speak to our vanity, our vulnerability, and the many ways we communicate love.
The process I am investing in with this work is one of creative collaboration. The resulting images are as much about how the subjects interact with the camera and the photographer, as they are about how they interact with each other in this experience. Moments of comfort are juxtaposed with moments of awkwardness; a series of meanings made from the familiar and new.
I am trying to find the dramatic in the quiet, the banal, the small moments.