Kiersten, Savannah, Georgia

Serving as a visual diary, my photographic project Closer is an ongoing exploration of the tenderness and vulnerability existing within interpersonal connection. After contracting Lyme disease at the age of 11 years old, I spent 5 years of my adolescence inconsistently attending school and often bedridden. This altered my social experience, limiting the depths of my relationships. After being cured and returning to high school for my junior year, it was as if I’d been born into a 17-year-old body. I finally began to experience and understand the intensity and tenderness that was possible within relationships. Connection became a cherished honor, something to document out of a desire for preservation. I realized I was driven by the act of becoming closer. The works in this series capture the tactile and emotional quality of these gentle moments, where my subject and I are witnesses to one another’s authenticity. My photographic ritual is an active practice celebrating the act of growing closer.

This particular photograph is one of trust and circumstance; A back turned away from a friend, a gentle hand to the neck. I have always found these parts of the body to be the most vulnerable, and recognize the trust involved in facing your back to someone, an act of tenderness in the release of immediate protection. The sight of my dear friend in this most vulnerable position evoked pure tenderness. The title is an homage to Emmet Gowin's photograph Edith, Chinoteague, Virginia, which depicts a perspective of devotion and fondness much like the one I feel for my loved ones.