Relationships

Relationships

Have held a fascination for me, likely as far back as I can recall.

There was a thing about loyalty...

How that goes both ways.

Being a lock-box overflows...

And how relationships morphed over time.

Some lasting, 

Others being absorbed into the abyss.

Our relationship to each other-

The good and the otherwise...

Those built on mutual agreement and 

Those endured.

A smile tickles the corner of my mouth,

Recalling how “forever” every interaction felt as a child.

Remembering how my elders would say:

“It might not matter ten years from today...”

Me-

**Fighting in the drama of it-

“This will ALWAYS matter! It will matter!!...”

....yet I cannot recall the name of that person who mattered so much...not now.

If only we understood then what we understand now....

Forever behind the eight ball of life.

When people who belong together, are together-

It’s the most fascinating and comfortable image.

For me-

Those images radiate a certain sense of security.

A lovely familiarity that bonds that photograph to a memory bank-

A belonging sort of image.

....and yet they do not always last forever.

So looking at an image, years later-

Adds a different layer of meaning to that captured moment.

What made sense then-

Feels uncomfortably unfamiliar, now.

Relationships are not photographs.

Although, photographs may be added to the story of how that relationship was.

Though meanings change and movements cease to have the intentions they once did.

When I was playing around with ombre-

A phase of photography I took a stab at....

There was a series of images I took of 2 people in a tree. 

The back story on the people captured-

Added a certain meaning to me, that a viewer would not know.

Nor should they-

Yet the images themselves held an almost unsettling beauty.

The kind of mood, That held true -without the ombre.

I will post them here-

As I was drifting through old images-

This set caught my fancy, once again.

I remember the feeling,

Not only of capturing them...

But also of their edit.

Remembering what “moody-mood” I was trying to communicate.

My own relationship, at that time-

Was in shambles.

The kind of shambles where denial and resentment hummed in the background.

Anyone experiencing a long, drawn out separation-

Knows exactly the mood I’m referring to. 

Creatively,

I had been in my “zombie” phase -

Taking a lot of cemetery trips to capture photos and video footage of a mini-project (that I never finished).

So,

Following one of those cemetery shoots-

My one friend scurried up a neighbouring tree.

The next, followed suit, being pulled up into the branches by the first.

My camera still slung around my neck,

Quickly in hand, snap-snap-snapping, as he helped her up, settled her in the tree limbs and monkey-crawled around her.

She was still in the “zombie” make-up-

And I noticed how the shadows in the trees and between the leaves...

Perfectly darkened and lightened the shapes their bodies were making. 

Lord have mercy-

I recall tears forming in my eyes,

As I dipped and curved to get those perfect angles.