"Gone and Leaving" (2023) is both a reflection and projection — an exploration of who I am within my surroundings and a documentation of the people I encounter, our relationships, and connections. It’s a contradiction in itself; I live with uncertainty about almost everything, loving and hating places, people, and even myself. There’s an absence of balance with intense feelings, either too much or not enough, and a sense of dissociation from myself and others. Sometimes, I reveal my subject’s identity; other times, I only show traces — a shadow, a silhouette, a fragment of something larger.
Though I aim to freeze time and capture a fleeting moment, I understand this can never be fully achieved. Everything is ephemeral, destined to blur, fade, and lose the vibrant tones of life, instead becoming tinged with the muted shades of nostalgia. The images convey a confusion between warmth and longing, finding and losing, creating a bittersweet tension. There’s an intimacy that exists in this distance, perhaps because others tend to open up to me more than I do to them, maybe because I’m more often the listener. Perhaps that’s why I carry a camera: I prefer being the observer rather than the observed.
The structure of the book is symbolic: the first half can be read from front to back, and the second from back to front. To arrive, you must leave. To be lost, you must be found. Every ending is the beginning of something new. And once a chapter is over, you can no longer add to it, but you can revisit the memories you’ve already made.