What do you see when you look at me? What do you see looking at these photographs of you? What role does the camera play between you and me?
"When I look at you I see your eyes, your nose, and I see the freckle on your lips. I see your earrings and I see you do a little smirk… From the tips of the strands of your hair to your tippy-toes, I see the culmination of beauty. I feel like you try to look around the corners instead of just what is looking back at you. Not out of curiosity, per say, but out of a love to see the whole world... for what it is and for what it can be. I see a person who wants to document the world, not only to capture it but to explore it. When I look at you I see exploration, beauty, and my love.
It is very healing. It is very healing for you to take images of me because you are able... you are a very quiet individual. You’re not, you’re really loud actually. In fact you are so loud you are screaming without moving your lips. I mean that, quite literally, it is all going on inside of you, and I recognize that when you’re looking at me. That you are screaming that you love me, but you are just looking at me with a quiet smile. I think that it is healing for you and I in the way that you are able to explore my face. My face being my identity, and then in the way of identifying your love for me through creating images.
I think the camera helps you explore. The camera is an extension of your eyes, an extension of you. Since we have declared our love for each other, there has been the phrase we say to one another... that we cannot express how much we love each other. Personally, this idea that I cannot put into words to describe this form of love that I feel for you, which is so intense. I think that you explore your forms of love through the photographs you create of me. The camera is a tool of your love. Somedays it’s a pen and paper, some days its one camera or another, but the presence of a lens in our space, and the spaces we find ourselves in, is ever-present through your eyes.
When I look at these pictures of me, I recognize a collection of moments, not necessarily of myself, but of your presence in the moments. I see myself as the subject, I am in the frame, but the pictures are not entirely about me. They are about how you view the person you love... how you respond and react through the relationship. That, by the grace of however many lifetimes, we found each other... and we found each other once more in this one. I see that you are exploring my face in a way that only you can, in a way that only your eyes can see me, still looking around corners. Your images are a testament to our love."
- Ben Model
