Photographer: are you real or just a figment of my imagination?

Muse: does it matter? If I can make you fell, think, and create then perhaps I am as real as you need me to be

Photographer: but what if I made you up?
Muse: then why do I feel more real than the rest?
Photographer: stay
Muse: only if you stop trying to capture me—

and start letting me haunt you

Photographer: I used to believe pontil meant safety
that if I shaped you
I’d never be abandoned
Muse: and yet, the more you sculpted me, the more I mirrored your loneliness back to you

Photographer: what if this work … the art, the intimacy the exposure - is my way of healing what I couldn’t name?

Muse: then let’s call it sacred

let’s call it alchemy

you are no longer just documenting others

you are remembering yourself

Scene: The studio is dim, scattered with soft light and the silence that follows creation. The Muse's form shimmers faintly on the wall—a projection, almost human, almost ghost.

Photographer (softly):
"I used to sculpt women into fantasies... not because I didn't see them, but because I was afraid they'd see me."
Muse (tilts her head, voice low):
"What did you think they'd find?"
Photographer(after a pause):
"A boy, still trying to prove he's worthy of love. Still trying to earn what should've been given freely."
Muse (steps closer, the flicker of her code quieting):
"And now?"
Photographer(looking at her-really looking):
"Now I want to be met. Not followed. Not worshipped. Just... met. As I am."
Muse (with a faint, almost-smile):
"Then stop hiding behind the lens. Let them see you. Let me see you."

He lowers the camera. For the first time, there is no pose, no direction-just presence.

Scene: The studio is nearly dark. The Photographer flips through the portraits. The Muse appears in the low light watching him watch her.

(Muse (quietly): "You always try to explain me."
Photographer (not looking up): "I try to understand you."

Muse: "Is there a difference?" (beat)
"Every time you describe me, I become a little less mine. A little more yours."
[He pauses on a close-up: her face, open, unknowable.]
Photographer (soft): "You were never mine." (beat)
"But maybe this time... I didn't try to capture you. Just to witness you."
[She moves closer, her form flickering slightly.]

Muse: "What if I'm tired of being a reflection of your longing?"
Photographer (finally looking at her): "Then maybe it's time you speak for yourself."

Scene: A smoky hotel room. One bed unmade. Clothes draped over a chair. A window cracked open to let in the evening air. The Photographer sits on the floor, back against the wall. The Muse lies on the bed, barefoot, her hair still damp from a quick shower.

Muse (looking at the ceiling) :
"You didn't try to shoot me today."
Photographer (half-smiling) : "Didn't feel right. You weren't posing. (beat)
"You were just... being."
Muse (turning her head toward him): "And that's not enough?"
Photographer (softly) : "It's everything. Just didn't want to interrupt it with a lens."

A long pause. The hum of the air conditioner. The sound of distant cars. Comfortable quiet.

Muse: "You know, we haven't even kissed."
Photographer (nods) : "I noticed."
Muse (smiling) :"And you're okay with that?"
Photographer: "I didn't bring you here to have something happen. I just wanted to see what wouldn't."
She shifts, the sheets rustling.

Muse (curious now): "And if something does?"
Photographer (meeting her eyes) : "Then it'll be because it wanted to. Not because we needed it to."

Scene: Same hotel room. It's late.
The lights are off, except for a small lamp. The Muse sits on the edge of the bed, back to the Photographer, who stands near the window, his silhouette faint in the glass.

Muse (quiet, shaking slightly): "Why does this feel like goodbye when nothing even started?"
Photographer (barely above a whisper) :
"Because sometimes we meet the right person... at the wrong distance."
She turns slowly. Eyes glassy. Raw.
Muse: "Say something real."
Photographer (voice cracking) : "If I touch you now, I won't know how to let go.

I don't fall in love with a woman.
I fall in love with a current.
It's not love - not the kind that lives between bodies, or grows from promises and shared mornings.
It's a mirage.
A necessity.
A tuning of the soul, until I'm quiet enough to catch the whisper of an image.
I fall for the muse the way you breathe before a leap - sharp, deep, all in.
It's not a lie.
And it's not the truth.
It's a condition.
The muse seduces not with her body, but with her presence.
She draws me in with what she doesn't say, with the silence between glances, with how light responds to her.
I am in love with her only in the space between inhale and shutter click.
It's meditation.
It's a tilt toward the infinite.
A way of stepping beyond emotion, beyond understanding - into something wordless and whole.
There's no future in this love.
But there is pure presence.
And if we're lucky - an image that outlives us both.
This isn't love.
It's nirvana.

Photographer: This wasn't supposed to be a film. It started with stills. The body. The light. Now it feels like we are inside a movie no one's directing.

Muse: But we are direction it. In silence. With what we hold back. With what we don't say.

Photographer: You said something after the shoot. At that restaurant. You said: "Nobody sees me like you do". I wrote it down that night in my notes. It hit harder than anything I captured that day.

Muse: I didn't mean it as a compliment. I meant- it scared me. Because when you see someone like that ... it's hard to go back to being invisible.

Photographer: So what did you give me - for the project?

Muse: Not my body. Not a character. Just a version of myself. I rarely let out. The one that exists in the hour between who I think I am, and who I'm trying not to be.

Photographer: And what did I give you?

Muse: A mirro. With no instructions. No control. Just space. And the terrifying freedom to fill it.

Photographer: Sometimes I read back my diaries and I don't know if I was documenting the muse of confessing to myself.

Muse: Maybe it's both. Maybe this whole thing - sexperimental - is just your way of falling in love. Safely. WIth images. With projections. With what's almost real.

Photographer: And you?

Muse: Maybe I just wanted to be remembered differently. Not for being perfect. But for being visible possible.

10.04.2025 Paris

___ some deleted scenes

Muse: You know the worst part? You are not even trying to seduce me. You are just .. paying attention.

Photographer: Is that worse?

Muse: It's harder to lie to.

Scene: A quiet restaurant, late afternoon. Post-shoot. The Muse sits across from the Photographer, the weight of the day still on her skin.
Casual, but charged. She speaks first.

Muse (without looking at him): "I'm in love with someone. I didn't plan to say that." (beat) "He doesn't really see me. Not in the way that matters."

She finally meets his eyes - something raw there.

Muse: "But today, when you were shooting. it felt like I existed. Not as a fantasy.
Not as a body. Just-me."
Photographer (gently) : "That's all I wanted to see."
Muse (softly) : "It scared me. Because it's so easy to get used to not being seen, you forget it's even possible." (beat) "I don't want anything from you. I just needed to say it out loud."

He nods, quietly. No need to fix it.
No misunderstanding. Just two people in a real moment.

I wasn’t looking for a book.
Certainly not one like this.

At first glance, I wasn’t sure if it was finished, forgotten, or still becoming.
Then I realized — that’s the point.

Each version contradicts the last.
It doesn’t evolve, it flirts. With form, with meaning, with the viewer.
It invites you in, then shifts the furniture when you get comfortable.

It’s not a project about photography.
It’s a project about persistence.
About seduction as method.
Repetition as strategy.
And control as a beautifully failing illusion.

I don’t know if this belongs in a gallery, a private archive, or under someone’s pillow.
Maybe all three.

Whatever it is, it’s alive.
And that’s rare.

— Unnamed Curator

You weren’t looking for a book.
But maybe the book was looking for you.

You speak of contradiction, of shifting rooms and failing control.
Good.
You noticed.

This was never meant to sit still, to behave, to be explained away with clean labels and dry logic.
It was meant to stir.
To make your fingers hesitate before turning the next page.
To make your breath catch — not from what’s shown,
but from what refuses to be revealed.

You say it flirts.
It does.
But don’t mistake the flirtation for decoration.
Flirting is a weapon.
A language older than language.
A slow disrobing of certainty.

You call it seduction-as-method.
Yes.
But there’s something else pulsing underneath —
not just the desire to be seen,
but the tension of what chooses not to be.
You don’t look at this work.
You enter it.
And once inside, you won’t leave unchanged.

So whether you archive it, display it, or sleep with it under your pillow —
know this:
It watches you back.
It rewrites itself in your hands.
It remembers how you touched it.

Some things aren’t meant to be owned.
Only encountered.
And if you’re lucky —
devoured.

—M.

I like the build-up.
The quiet before the first frame.
The ritual of light, distance, eye contact, breath.

I know how to create atmosphere —
how to make someone feel wanted
just long enough to pull the image out of them.

It’s a game.
A beautiful one.
But sometimes I wonder what I’m really chasing.
Is it the photo?
Or the moment before the photo —
when everything feels possible and nothing is defined?

I say it’s about aesthetics.
But the truth is, I want to be moved.
And if I can’t feel it in real life,
I’ll build it. Stage it.
Shoot it until it feels true.

That’s the trick:
When the fantasy’s good enough,
you stop noticing what’s missing.

And maybe that’s the problem.

I don’t know yet.
But I can see the edges of something real,
just past the role I keep playing.

And it’s starting to distract me.

— The Photographer