There are a handful of photographs I have never forgotten. Sometimes, I blink and I can see them, like the negatives are resting on my mind’s eye.
Roy DeCarava’s Couples Dancing (1956), where light illuminates the gentle curves of arms, a man and a woman holding each other close. A photo from John Goto’s Lover’s Rock series (1977), featuring a seated couple, the woman gazing through the lens, the man resting his cheek on her back, his fingers grazing her knuckles. The couple in Dawoud Bey’s Couple in Prospect Park (1990) stand sure and defiant, together, the woman’s chin slightly raised, the man’s arms clasped around her back.
In each image, we see what language sometimes fails to express; these moments and gestures of intimacy that come and go.
When I write, I often feel like I am transcribing photographs. First there is a feeling, then a scene that manifests in my mind, trying to express that feeling. Contained within that scene are those intimate gestures I spoke of, where a hand might graze or hold or rest, a gaze might catch and meet, or turn away. Where our bodies might speak what our minds know, what we really feel.
When I write, and when I take photos, as I do in my day to day, I’m trying to allow space for these gestures to happen. Those contained within my fiction are mostly Black and there is a fullness to Black life that often goes undocumented. There is no one definition to Blackness but many Black people must live according to someone else’s idea, someone else’s construct. I’m interested in the infinite possibilities of Blackness, in the infinite possibilities of love. I’m interested in seeing someone as they want to be seen. In giving someone space to think and feel and breathe. To love outwardly and to love themselves.
In the moment between me pressing the shutter and the clap of my old medium format camera, there is a freedom to be found. It houses trust between two or more people; it houses honesty, a truth. In that moment, the possibilities are infinite. In that moment, I am asking, who are you? How do you live? How do you love? How do you want be seen?
There’s a photo of my Mum which I adore. The details of when the photo was taken are hazy, but I’m interested in possibilities, so perhaps we’ll say, it was outside a family function, a barbeque at the height of a British summer, sometime in the 1980s. She’s leaning slightly, smiling coyly. Her hands fall lightly by her sides and the gaze is sure and defiant, yet easy. She trusts the person on the other side of the lens, who happens to be the man she loves, the man she will marry. Maybe they told each other I love you before it was taken. Maybe they did not. Either way, the language isn’t necessary here. I can see how they feel without it being said.
I’m fortunate to photograph those I love, often. They smile and lean and laugh and grin. They are coy and sure and defiant. They are beautiful and nervous, vulnerable and assured. They are unafraid to let their bodies speak their truths. They are everything they want to be. They are themselves. Is this love? Giving someone space to be themselves?
There are specific gazes I notice most of my portraits share. They sometimes cast their eyes out of the frame, in which case I think of them looking towards, looking forwards, seeing all that is possible. Sometimes, they gaze straight towards the lens and I know there is a reciprocation taking place: they are seeing me as I see them, wholly, fully, as themselves. Sometimes, their eyes are fixed on another, on a finger grazing a knuckle, on the gentle curves of arms, on another's eyes. I feel grateful to be able to see and document these moments. I don't forget them, they stay imprinted on my mind's eye. I know language sometimes fails us. I know that I love you might not be enough to express what one truly feels. But I know when the image emerges on celluloid, you might be able to see.
Caleb Azumah Nelson is a 27-year-old British-Ghanaian writer and photographer living in south-east London. Open Water, his debut novel, is published by Viking and is available now.
