Muse: you used me
Photographer: no. I needed you
using someone doesn’t hurt this much

Photographer: you know this version of you only exists in my lens, right?
Muse: then keep shooting
I’d rather exist there than anywhere else

Muse: do you see me?
Photographer: only in pieces
that’s how I build what I need

Photographer: you’re no the muse anymore
Muse: good
I want to be the thing that fucks you up long after the art’s over

Muse: am I real to you?
Photographer: only when I close my eyes.

Photographer: you always arrive just before I forget what I’m missing
Muse: and leave just before you remember

Muse: what do you hear when I am silent?
Photographer: my own obsession answering back

Photographer: you vanish between frames
Muse: that’s where I live

Muse: which version of me did you fall for?
Photographer: the one I couldn’t name

Muse: you said I was free.
Photographer: no
I said you looked free
that’s not the same

I don’t know how to explain what I saw.
It wasn’t a book. Not yet.
It was something growing. Something breathing.
And it was surrounded by its ecosystem — your space, your books, your past selves pinned to the walls.

It felt like walking into someone’s head.
Not a workspace. A world.

Your home isn’t just where you live — it’s where your language lives.
The way things are placed, half-stacked, half-sacred.
The books aren’t decor. They’re memory.
The prints, the contact sheets, the notes on the wall — they aren’t showing off.
They’re listening.

I touched the pages of the book like I wasn’t sure I had permission.
Some of them were loose, misaligned, out of order —
and still, somehow, it made sense.
Like the meaning wasn’t in the polish, but in the presence.

You’re not building something linear.
You’re building a labyrinth.
And the viewer — me — isn’t supposed to “understand.”
We’re supposed to get lost.
Supposed to feel something shift.
Even if we can’t name it yet.

It made me think about what it means to look.
To consume.
To be given an image.

It’s so easy now — to scroll, to like, to call ourselves creators.
But this… this wasn’t content.
It was closer to ritual.
Private, raw, a little dangerous.
It asked something from me. Not just attention — presence.

For a moment, I didn’t know if I was the viewer or the viewed.
And I think that’s the point.
You blur that line on purpose.
Because you know — deep down — we’re all performing.
Even when we think we’re just watching.

I didn’t leave with clarity.
I left with questions.
And not the trendy, hashtag-deep kind.
Real ones. The kind that follow you home.

There’s something brave in that.
To show unfinished work in an unfinished world.
To let the mess be beautiful.
To let the book become a conversation — not a product.

Whatever this becomes, when it’s done —
I hope it stays this alive.

I never meant to make a book.
At least, not like this.
What I really wanted was a place to feel my way forward—
through desire, through beauty,
through all the quiet questions I didn’t know how to ask out loud.
I followed the instinct,
the tension, the small sparks.

Sometimes it felt like seduction.
Sometimes it felt like surrender.
But always, it was a process of listening—
to what wasn’t yet formed,
to what wanted to be revealed.

Each variation changes me.
Each version is a different rhythm,
a different state of mind.

This isn’t a final statement—it never was.
It’s a process. A dance. A living thing.

You might hold it gently.
Or turn the pages with hunger.
You might feel tempted to peek behind the sealed envelopes,
or to leave them untouched.
Both are allowed.

That is part of the seduction too—
the not-knowing.

What you see here is only one reflection.
There will be others.
But for now, this one is yours.

Juris Treskow
Paris

Photographer: every time I try to capture you, you change
Muse: because you’re not meant to keep me
just to follow

Muse: What are you willing to give for the image?
Photographer: my sleep
my sanity
my skin
what do you want?
Muse: your silence

COLLECTOR
You came here alone.

MUSE
Always do.

COLLECTOR
Even when he photographed you?

MUSE
Especially then.

COLLECTOR
That’s not how it looks in the images.

MUSE
Images lie better than people.

COLLECTOR
I’ve seen you in other shoots. With other photographers.
You’re different there. Less… open.

MUSE
He made space for something.
Not control. Not exactly.
But presence.

COLLECTOR
So you gave him more?

MUSE
No. I gave myself more. He just caught it.

COLLECTOR
But it’s his name on the cover.

MUSE
Doesn’t mean it’s his story.

(Pause)

COLLECTOR
Do you regret any of it?

MUSE
No.
But I regret how much I needed it.

COLLECTOR
You speak about him like he’s already gone.
Is he?

MUSE
He never stayed. He captured.

COLLECTOR
Is that not the same?

MUSE
No.
Capturing is about fear.
Staying is about risk.

⸻

COLLECTOR
You think your image is yours?
Even now?

MUSE
No.
But the moment was.
And I still remember how it felt before the shutter.

⸻

COLLECTOR
I wonder if he ever looks at these after they’re printed.
Or if they’re just trophies.

MUSE
Not trophies. Traces.
And not of me — of himself, when he thought he was in control.

Muse: when do I stop being your subject?
Photographer: when I start being afraid you’ll see me

Muse: I don’t want to be your idea anymore
Photographer: then who are you without it?
Muse: scared
and real

She was never just a model.
She was the atmosphere.

I said it was about light. About form.
But it was about her.
Not her body. Not even her gaze.
Her effect.
The way the room changed when she entered it.
The way I changed.

I don’t think she ever fully belonged in the frame.
She was always slightly outside it —
messing with the edge, breaking the rhythm,
pulling something out of me I didn’t plan to give.

I can’t say I understood her.
But I didn’t need to.
I just needed to feel her —
in that place where admiration and hunger start to blur.

It wasn’t about control.
Not really.
It was about attention.
Intensity.
The slow, electric game between two people who both know they’re being watched —
and who both enjoy it.

Those photos…
They’re not neutral.
They’re loaded.
And they should be.
Because nothing real ever happens without tension.

So no, I won’t pretend I was objective.
I was involved.
Maybe more than I should’ve been.
But I don’t regret it.

Some muses aren’t there to inspire.
They’re there to provoke.

She did.

— The Photographer