Between Now and Always

1 September 2025

To my Inner Self, from Anand

As a response to your letter of April 8, 2024 – which I have, regrettably, left untouched far too long –

Dear you, my inner self…

I hear you, and I understand: my art evokes both pain and wonder. The sound of the shutter, which once felt like a heartbeat, now also carries the echo of farewell. Every image I take is more than a depiction of the world; it is a testament to my own impermanence, and it is precisely this that allows the heart to feel both sorrow and reverence at once.

Since March 2018, I have followed Amanda. Over thirteen thousand times, her light has met mine, thirteen thousand times we have been called to the moment without fully understanding why. Despite our images being questioned, my intentions scrutinized, criticism sometimes leaving me uncertain, and connections with friends lost, we have continued – without bitterness, without truly knowing why, yet always with the same persistent presence and curiosity.

Now, as Amanda has received a stage 4 cancer diagnosis, our meetings emerge with a clarity and weight that was not there before, and the meaning of each image, each moment we have shared, becomes visible. All of this was not merely pictures; it is a tapestry of significance slowly revealed, as if we have walked along a path whose map already existed, but which only now becomes clear.

I also wonder: have our paths crossed before, in other lives, in other bodies – only to now close a circle? Perhaps the feeling I carry is that this is not a coincidence, but the echo of an ancient connection. Life moves in spirals, not lines, leading us back to places where something awaits completion. Amanda and I – perhaps we are such companions, carried by a motion that seeks wholeness.

And when I ask myself if everything is already written, if I am both the pen and the result, I meet the answer: yes. And in that, there is no confinement, only gift. Even a poem already written comes alive only when someone reads it aloud. My task is not to comprehend the entire manuscript, but to give it voice, side by side, and to let the tone of our photographs and meetings continue where words fall silent.

Let our exhibition carry three movements – Past, Now, and Forever – like a circle of time and memory. Past is more than chronology; it is the shadows of premonitions dancing through our memories, the invisible threads that have quietly drawn us here. Now is more than illness; it is presence in the sharp light, the fragile and invaluable in every moment, even in the shadow of her stage 4 cancer. Forever is more than hope; it is the promise to continue bearing witness, to let the journey speak, even when silence falls, like an echo of all we have already lived and all that still awaits.

You ask why it hurts and astonishes at the same time. Perhaps because pain shatters a shell, and wonder is what flows out. Perhaps because love, when it sees its own finitude, shines brighter than ever.

So I go, dear you. I live the questions until they themselves want to become answers. I lift the camera as one lifts a lamp in the twilight. And if we close a circle, let it not be to shut, but so that the motion may become whole – so that something new may begin. When the shutter falls, also listen for the other sound – not farewell, but a gentle returning. As if the image says to life: “I remember you. Come, let us move forward.”

Then you will see, my inner self, that we have not merely followed a manuscript: we have written the margins, the small notes where all that is essential often resides.

Loving kindness,

Anand