She only said yes because it was me.
Then she said yes to everything else.
This is the ensaio that started a lot of things. I was at the beginning of my work in Dublin and I needed to photograph couples I trusted. I asked Nai and Hanna.
Hanna is shy — properly shy. The kind of shy that turns down photoshoots out of principle. She told me she'd never do this for anyone else. She was only doing it because it was me, because we already knew each other, because she trusted the lens specifically when I was holding it.
We went to a studio. The light was very magazine, very editorial — clean, intentional, unforgiving. I expected nervousness. What happened instead was Hanna and Nai forgetting the camera completely, looking at each other the way they look at each other when no one is around.
Hanna is from Porto Alegre. Nai is from Salvador. They met in Dublin and they stayed in Dublin and they have built one of the most quietly steady relationships I know. They put work into each other. They choose, in a way that I have always admired.
The photos are few. They are also among the photos I look at the most. They remind me what I'm trying to do, and they remind me that trust is the only thing that makes any of this work.
Coverage · Studio · short session
Brief · Editorial, intimate, two people who already know each other
Result · The photos that taught me what I was doing
