2023. ‘Romance Theme’ is a body of work that explores intimacy, relationships and love language, looking at different couples’ connections and giving a glimpse into the beauty and trust within relationships. I met with various couples to photograph them and capture small and delicate details of their interactions.
This project was originally inspired by the work of Ryan McGinley, whose 1998 self portrait of him kissing someone in the mirror really intrigued me and made me question elements of the backstory-- who was he kissing? Were they in a relationship or was it a friend, or even someone they’d just met? This image led me to take some self portraits of me and my partner, which quickly expanded into photographing other people my age who were in relationships.
Another few key inspirations were Masahisa Fukase and his work on his then-wife Yoko Wanibe, Laura Pannack’s work on young couples and Nirav Patel’s beautiful way of capturing weddings and lovers.
A project like this should feel invasive because you are looking at what should be a couple’s private moments, but I was invited into these people’s homes. It instead feels like a wholesome and fragile documentation, showing small details and intricacies of these people’s love languages and interactions.