since 2014
I’ve photographed Chloe as we both grew up.
We met for the first time in 2008, when Chloe was a tiny, non-verbal thing, about 6 months old. Handed to me in a bundle by their father, my stomach sunk at the gravity of it. The love was immediate. Perfect and alien and holy, swaddled in my eight-year-old arms.
As we all grew older, I became a welcome, qualified babysitter. In the summer of 2014, I asked their mother if I could help watch Chloe while she worked from home. That year I took some of my first photographs with a real camera, of Chloe.
This was the real birthplace of our friendship. Hours spent in the backyard on a swing, hands sticky from crafts and popsicles. Each afternoon we felt more like siblings. Conversation and play came easily, Chloe was a real person so much earlier than I remembered being.
Years pass through us like breaths, these days Chloe is thinking about college. They have a drivers license.
For eleven years later, watching Chloe grow up is the most rewarding thing I’ve been a part of.
December 30, 2014
The first time I made photos of Chloe
