Love me tender.

Every summer cicadas tap the tempo and the warm wind tiptoes through the trees, rustling dry, precocious leaves.

Bodies lounge, eyes, heavy with tiredness from the year, are washed clear with fresh fruit and deep dives and afternoons that stretch out in the sun.

Everything slows.

Days roll into one, meals with no beginning and no end, long evenings, late mornings. Water runs from the hose like time passing through my hands.

Every summer I have a long list of things I want to photograph when all my children are home. Every summer I want to soak up just being there with them. I don’t know how many more summers there will be like this. Just me and them here at home, no plans, no obligations. This year we had a short week like that. I abandoned my list and decided to make it simple. A handful of colour film and my old polaroid sx-70.

Polaroid write creative briefs on the protective sheets that cover the film. As I clicked the door shut on the first film this summer the protective sheet rolled out. It read “Love me tender”.

Summer ’24