Lila’s been my inspi­ra­tion late­ly. Her pho­tos are of such rou­tine sub­jects, but every frame is more than that moment. There’s some­thing about them that exudes glam­our and inti­ma­cy, as if her entire life was filled with cham­pagne and Channel.

I asked her what the­o­ry she fol­lows, what equip­ment she uses, expect­ing to learn some basic tech­nique I’ve some­how missed. Instead, she tells me she does­n’t do or use any­thing spe­cial. She does­n’t even know what she sets for expo­sure and tone, cause she always plays around and changes them for every pho­to she takes. A true Taoist when it comes to pho­tog­ra­phy, and a true pho­tog­ra­ph­er after my heart.

“best birth­day ever.”, “coolest guy on the block”, “he is the one”, “London, I love you”.

One of my favourite sub­jects is her per­fect­ly-coifed, impec­ca­bly-dressed Norwegian boyfriend. Sometimes he’s just lying by the win­dow, and with his shirt off you can make out the fab­ric creas­es that have marked his back, reveal­ing that he’s recent­ly turned over on the bed. It makes you won­der what’s hap­pened, or what’s about to hap­pen. These are the details she’s cho­sen to cap­ture. These things were impor­tant enough for her to pick up her cam­era. There’s such affec­tion under it all, and per­haps that’s why it’s so fas­ci­nat­ing to see how the girl looks at the guy.

It’s the same with Aurora’s old entries:

Rolf is sit­ting a few feet away from me on a Sunday night and we’re about to play Settlers Of Catan online togeth­er. He’ll wake me with a kiss in the morn­ing and we’ll dri­ve to work togeth­er. I’m full of a tasty new sup­per that he intro­duced me to. We’ve just fucked on the floor.

Do I love him? Or do I love this? How big is the dif­fer­ence?

I’ve always won­dered what a per­son would say if she ever wrote about me the way Aurora wrote about him. To see a lover learn­ing and grow­ing, fig­ur­ing out their life and the world, and dis­cov­er­ing what part I play in all of that.