Speaking of tenderness.

image above, and the next one below by

Zeynep Kayan

Following a hint by
Jim Colberg, I found the project “The Ones We Love”.
The rules of the game:

“This (…) a project highlighting young and talented photographers from around the world. Each artist contributed six photographs of the person(s) who is most important to them, taken outdoors in a natural setting. The goal of the website is to portray the people who are loved, cherished, and inspirational to these artists, and also showcase the differences and similarities in the photographs each of them took within the same guidelines.”

At the beginning of each sequence of images the authors are describing in a handwritten statement their relationship to the person they photographed.
For me the combination of text and image accounts for part of the special charm of this project.

I rumbled around on the website after having seen “My Blueberry Nights” by Wong Kar Wai, a movie that is far off the subtlety, tenderness and innovativeness of his earlier works. I still was touched by it, for I am easily manipulated by almost any love story.

I might have been already chipped by the love story, or I am generally susceptible to images that touch in one way or another the topic of affection and memories.

Therefore it doesn’t bother me at all, that the images that could exist on their own besides this or a private context were hard to find. I enjoyed looking at all of these images, hoping for a discovery.

Some of my favorites I am assembling here now. It’s not a representative but strictly a personal selection.
All these images share a delicateness of expression. The photographers, thus their images, show us closeness and speak of tenderness.