A photography project at Nadas Istanbul.

The idea for this project began with light-- the way it slanted into Nadas’ sweet space, the way each room seemed to shimmer with sunshine. Now, it has spanned nearly a year, cutting across all the turning seasons-- the heavy haze of winter, the blooming season bursting with tulips, summer as languorous as sugar on our tongues, and autumn when the pomegranates run red with ripeness.

In that year, some of the friends who participated in this project have left Istanbul for good, their faces flush with flowers that have long since faded. Time turns.

Shooting with film is a way of playing with time, both beholden to and held by the inevitability of days passing. Every image in this exhibition is a time capsule of two distinct moments. I shot all these portraits at Nadas over two separate days in October and November 2018; I shot the doubles throughout the year, in Los Angeles, in Istanbul, in a sunflower field in Kuyucak.

I thought all of my images from this series would be deliberate— doubles based on some essence of my portrait subject, each portrait marked with meticulous notes, each layer deliberately curated. But, life is messier than that. I relearned the lesson I seem to receive every season: control is an illusion, and the most beautiful things come from letting go of it. 

So let’s keep moving forward, through these quickening days and the turning of seasons, ever closer to the light.

This project was exhibited at Nadas Istanbul from 9/27/19 - 10/13/19.