Anna

I met Anna when she visited Denmark to work with another photographer. I hosted her for a few days, and when her flight back to the US was cancelled, she stayed a few days more. I had mostly stopped working with models at that time, so I felt no desire to take pictures of her, despite the fact that she is a professional model and a ballet dancer.

We did get along quite well, however, and we began a relationship and met in various locations. We both avoided taking pictures together for the first 6 months that we knew each other. For me, this was to allow our relationship to develop without the dimension of creating art together.

When we finally did decide to take pictures together, we discovered that we have very different styles of working. It took me a long time to find my comfort zone when shooting with her and much later she admitted that she didn’t understand or really appreciate the type of photography I do.

Eventually I did take 1000s of pictures of her and helped her build a remote photography business during the covid lockdowns (so that she could work with a photographer located in another country through the use of my camera equipment connected to the internet). I assisted her in well over 100 remote photo sessions and helped train others to assist her in well over 100 more.

This, however, had the effect on me that I had always feared about combining generating money from art.

It took all the joy out of it.

Eventually our relationship declined as well. We are now long distance friends.