Fragments of Light No. 4: The last “See you later”

As children, we were outside at every opportunity. Being city kids, we mostly played in backyards or on the streets of our neighborhood. All sorts of kids would be there after school until dinner. Sometimes someone would bring a cool toy or something else exciting to play with, or we'd just wander around. New kids would join us, and some would simply disappear. You might not see each other for weeks, and then they'd reappear, and you'd just pick up where you left off, as if no time had passed. And then, eventually, you'd never see each other again.

What do you call the moment when you say goodbye for the last time, when you say "see you later," without knowing that it was the last time? Just as there are names for the smell of rain on dry earth (petrichor).

This carefree spirit and the fleeting yet intense encounters we experience as children or teenagers often find a parallel in the world of portrait photography. Photography captures moments as ephemeral as those of our afternoons in backyards. Every click of the shutter is like an unconscious attempt to postpone that "until then," to hold onto that fleeting moment forever. But just like in childhood, you simply don't know if this might be the last time you see that person, whether through the lens or ever.

In portrait photography, I often encounter this undefined kind of farewell; in fact, it's the norm. Yet somehow, one doesn't quite want to accept it and secretly hopes for a next time. But it usually doesn't come, or even if you do see each other again, the moment of final goodbye inevitably arrives at some point, without you even realizing it. This constant striving to capture transience makes portrait photography a unique art form. Every shoot tells a story, captures an encounter that will never be the same again.

For a fraction of a second, I feel these childhood encounters – intense and fleeting as a memory at the moment I open the pictures from past shoots and everything is suddenly there again.

For me, there is a certain melancholy in portrait photography, which arises from a longing for the irretrievable and teaches us to accept transience and to see the beauty in fleeting moments.

Every portrait is a "see you later" without the guarantee of a reunion, and this uncertainty is what makes them so valuable.