Muse: do you wish we’d done it differently?
Photographer: I wish I’d seen you sooner.
not the version I wanted - you

Muse: for a long time, I thought your gaze gave me power
now I’m wondering what I gave up to earn it
Photographer: I never meant to take anything from you
Muse: you didn’t take it
I handed it over without even asking why

Muse: you watched me for so long, you forgot I had eyes too
Photographer: I see that now
and it’s terrifying

Photographer: I don’t know how to shoot you anymore
Muse: good
now maybe you’ll learn how to see me

Photographer: I didn’t mean to make you into a symbol
Muse: you didn’t mean to
but you needed me to mean something more than I actually was

Muse: sometimes I miss the way you looked at me back then
even if it wasn’t really me you saw
Photographer: I miss it too. But I’d rather see you clearly now than worship a fantasy

Muse: I used to wait for you to tell me what to do
Photographer: and now
Muse: now I wait for you to ask

Photographer: what do you think is left between us ?
Muse: a different kind of permission
not the one we used to perform
the one we actually feel

There are things I haven’t said out loud.
Not because they’re too dark —
but because they’re too close.

Sometimes I look at the work and wonder if it was ever about the image.
Or if it was always just about feeling wanted.
Seen. Needed.
Even for a moment.

I’ve used the camera to get close.
To stay distant.
To ask without asking.
To keep the power in my hands — even when what I really wanted
was to be undone.

I’ve photographed women I didn’t understand.
And sometimes I fell in love with the version of them I created.
The curated chaos. The performance I thought was real.
Or worse — the one I hoped would save me.

I’ve said it’s about beauty.
And maybe it is.
But more often it’s about the ache beneath it.
The part that doesn’t get published.
The part that stares back at me at night when the edits are done
and the silence gets louder.

I don’t know what this is yet.
A reckoning? A release? A reframe?

But I know this:
The deeper I go, the less I’m performing.
And the more it costs.

Which probably means I’m getting closer.

— The Photographer

The studio is quiet. Morning light. There are books on the floor, some open to blank pages, some with Polaroids slipped between them. The Muse has just finished reading the letter from the Photographer. The Curator is already seated, sipping cold coffee.

⸻

Muse:
It’s strange.
Reading your letter felt like watching someone walk backwards through their own footprints.
Tender. Clumsy. Brave.

Photographer:
It didn’t feel brave when I wrote it.
It felt like bleeding into a page.

Curator:
That’s usually when it matters.
Real growth never arrives clean.
It stumbles in, half-unfinished, unsure of what it’s even answering.
But it leaves a mark — a new pattern you couldn’t have seen from the outside.

Muse:
I used to think you were always sure.
You had that look in your eye — the kind that made people trust the camera, even when they didn’t trust themselves.

Photographer:
That was survival.
If I didn’t act like I knew what I was doing…
the fear would’ve swallowed me whole.

Curator:
Fear is useful.
But only if you listen to what it’s actually saying.

Muse:
And what’s it saying now?

Photographer:
That I’ve spent years building images of people I couldn’t always understand.
Sometimes falling in love with the image before meeting the person.
Sometimes confusing beauty with meaning.
Or meaning with safety.

Muse:
Do you regret it?

Photographer:
No.
But I don’t want to keep doing it that way.
I want to meet the person before the frame freezes.

Curator:
You’re describing an artist stepping out of projection.
It’s painful. But it’s the only way the work matures.
Otherwise, you stay trapped in a loop — reworking the same gesture, hoping it lands differently.

Muse:
I used to like being your projection.
It gave me shape.
But lately, I’ve been doing things in front of your camera that surprise me —
not just you.

Photographer:
Like what?

Muse:
Pausing. Saying no.
Sitting still when I used to perform.
Looking back at you instead of waiting to be directed.

Curator:
That’s the beginning of co-authorship.

Muse:
I think I’m starting to feel the story in my own body.
Not just as something happening to me, but something I can move.
Shape.
Even stop, when it’s too much.

Photographer: (softly)
And I’m learning to listen without needing to capture everything.

Curator:
Good.
Because not everything wants to be captured.
Some things need to be witnessed —
and then released.

(A pause. The light shifts slightly. Outside, a distant sound of birds. For a second, no one speaks.)

⸻

Muse:
Do you think the next variation will be easier?

Photographer:
No.
But maybe it will be clearer.

There was a time I didn’t know what I looked like until I saw it in your photographs.

You framed me so beautifully, I started believing the silence inside the image was my voice.
I confused being seen with being known.
I confused stillness with consent.

But something shifted.

Not all at once — not some dramatic rebellion.
More like… a loosening.
A quiet resistance.

I stopped trying to be the perfect light.
I started noticing when I was holding my breath.
I began asking: what happens if I move before you’re ready?

You taught me how to feel beautiful.
But you never taught me what to do with the rest of me —
The chaos. The no. The scenes I never wanted captured.

And maybe that wasn’t your job.
Maybe it was mine, all along.

Lately, I’ve caught myself looking at the lens differently.
Less like a mirror.
More like a threshold.

What if I don’t just cross it for you?
What if I bring something back?

I’m still learning.
How to hold my own gaze.
How to shape the frame from the inside.

It’s awkward, sometimes.
I contradict myself.
I surprise myself.
I even annoy myself.

But I feel real.

Not just performed. Not just beautiful.
Not just the woman someone once wanted me to be.

There’s power in that.
Even if no one’s watching.

Even if the camera is off.

— The Muse

Photographer: some of my favourite shots never made it into the book
Muse: why not?
Photographer: because they were just for us

Muse: I don’t need to be the center of your work.
Photographer: you never were
you were the gravity

Photographer: thank you for being patient with me
Muse: you weren’t easy
but you were honest
and that’s what stayed with me

Muse: I didn’t know I could feel powerful and soft at the same time
Photographer: you always were both
I just needed to catch up

So … you made it to the end.Watched them pull each other apart and put themselves back together. But I was never really watching them. I was watching you. How you leaned in. How you flinched - or lingered - when it got a bit too honest.

Don’t worry.
I like that in a viewer.

Maybe next time…
I’ll let you see me
if you ask nicely.
Or not - so - nicely.

. the woman you almost noticed

There are things I haven’t said out loud.
Not because they’re too dark —
but because they’re too close.

Sometimes I look at the work and wonder if it was ever about the image.
Or if it was always just about feeling wanted.
Seen. Needed.
Even for a moment.

I’ve used the camera to get close.
To stay distant.
To ask without asking.
To keep the power in my hands — even when what I really wanted
was to be undone.

I’ve photographed women I didn’t understand.
And sometimes I fell in love with the version of them I created.
The curated chaos. The performance I thought was real.
Or worse — the one I hoped would save me.

I’ve said it’s about beauty.
And maybe it is.
But more often it’s about the ache beneath it.
The part that doesn’t get published.
The part that stares back at me at night when the edits are done
and the silence gets louder.

I don’t know what this is yet.
A reckoning? A release? A reframe?

But I know this:
The deeper I go, the less I’m performing.
And the more it costs.

Which probably means I’m getting closer.

— The Photographer