“It’s not that you love Paris, it’s that you love the person you are when you are in Paris.”
I miss her. I see glimpses of her.
This image was a collaborative effort, woven from stories and experiences among different women for one particular woman. It is one image in a series I created for Lissa.
Image Work
Image Work is the name of a new art/photography offering I’ve been developing. It is a three-session format that draws on my experiences as a therapist and artist and is based on my own personal use of art to help process emotion.
The first session is a meeting and introduction. In the second session, we talk more about whatever is causing internal struggle, pain, or wishing to be memorialized. I formulate a plan based on our conversations, then collect portraits and background images to work with in creating a series that visually explores the themes that arise. After receiving the images, we have a final session to discuss them in detail and the process of creating and receiving them.
In this session, the line, it’s not that you love Paris, it’s that you love the person you are when you are in Paris. I miss her. I see glimpses of her, is the thesis of a story about losing yourself and remembering your way back.
A Sample of Images
This was when I felt like I was being pulled … I just felt stuck in this matrix.
Some images take more time to digest. Seeing the heartbreaking parts of your internal experience reflected back to you can be a jarring experience, and especially difficult when your nervous system is in a steady survival mode state. Having the images printed allows you to pick them up to explore and set them down as needed.
Of a similar feeling tone, Lissa shared:
I felt this was when I was just lost, and I know that’s not the right word. It’s not that you need to find yourself because you already know yourself. It’s just remembering her.
In conversation, I shared my thoughts on creating this image. I find it stunning in its simplicity. I took this image before we ‘started’. It was where Danielle was sitting as I got my camera ready, and before I offered a single direction. I met her exactly where she was. The original image looks like nothing special, one that might normally be overlooked. But put in the right place, the beauty resonates deeply.
What made this background ‘the right place’, a place rich with beauty in my eyes, was the visual elements paired with context. I knew traveling, and Paris in particular, was significant to what I wanted to offer. I have never been to Paris and did not have any of my own images to use for backgrounds. However, in our conversations, a mutual photographer friend, Cami Turpin, came up, and we discussed how she has supported and inspired Lissa in meaningful ways. I reached out to Cami to see if she would be open to me using some of her Paris images for this project. Cami was incredibly generous with her work, and it was such a special element to include in this series. The background here was one of Cami’s. The figure is hard to see fully, which allows for more interpretation – she could be any of us. She is all of us. And this image only came together because of a community effort, four different women.
This is the one where I felt like I was finally moving forward towards myself. It still felt like I was stuck in between but more on the other side, probably because of the muted colors, which I love. These are my colors.
Visual elements in this image helped Lissa identify a specific aspect of her emotional experience. Motion blur and the lines in this image suggest movement, in contrast to the model’s stationary position, visually depicting a contradictory state of moving towards self while feeling stuck. The overall feeling was more hopeful for her, as she identified with the color palette’s pleasantness.
This one, I felt like I was finding myself. It was the first time I’d been back to Paris since I was 20. But I felt sort of like I was on the inside looking out, like I wanted to go, but I wasn’t sure. I am looking out at the door.
It was a joy to share with Lissa in our final conversations how Cami’s Paris images were used in her series, and she resonated immediately with the windows and doors in this Paris street scene. That added context gave her meaning even more depth.
This one reminds me of the old me, sassy, free, carefree, and that’s who I want to get back to.
Cami’s stunning double-exposure image of the sky with the Paris city line created the perfect dream-state background to pair with this emotive portrait. This portrait visually exemplifies the free feeling Lissa seeks and often finds while traveling, a way of returning home to herself.
That’s how I heal – through travel.
Closing Thoughts
You got my entire story!
With the images printed in front of her, Lissa was able to move and organize them in ways that made sense to her, transforming the experience of receiving images into something tangible and deeply personal. She was able to piece together her story. A story about losing yourself and remembering your way back.
