18/05/2025
“Lost to her at first, I took every sign as confirmation that she was the one. I longed for it so deeply, I even saw her intimacy, unmistakably, in the shape of a cloud.”
- From Elūl
There are so many platitudes online about accountability and healing — but few explain what they really mean. I carried the weight of pain, shame, and blame for years before I realised it wasn’t mine to carry — and that it was holding me back, stranding me in barren ground where nothing good could grow. The book I’ve just made is about that journey.
If you’ve seen my profile, you’ll know I describe myself as a therapeutic photography facilitator and practitioner. What does that mean? I believe all art is therapeutic — for the maker, the witness, and, for want of a better word, the subject. There’s the quotidian process of feeling and making — and there’s the deeper work of excavating from the subconscious into consciousness.
I’d already begun forgiving my former partner years before she approached me, one final time, to apologise for what happened, and what didn’t. I can only imagine that came from her own process — of facing herself, of forgiving herself. The book wasn’t made for her. It was made for me. But I hope it might offer her something too.
Photography has always helped me make sense of life — to look back, to reflect, to reinhabit past experience, and often, to gain deeper insight. It’s enriched my life, broadened my understanding and carried me back to myself.
I don’t explain the images in the book. I write about what was happening inside me. The pictures stand on their own.
I hope that when you hold the book, it holds you. That it gives you space to reflect. And that you find, as I have,
that the truest freedom comes from taking responsibility for what was yours, letting go of what wasn’t, and trusting that forgiveness, like anything worth having, takes time to grow.
