He is fleeting2013––ongoing “If I say it is okay you’re allowed to take photos. If I say it’s not okay, it’s not okay to take photos” – Ronin, aged five. I watch the kids in my life, and childhood seems so fleeting. My impulse is to try and keep it frozen with my camera, to keep them forever. I’m nostalgic for my own childhood memories, even as a kid I loved pouring over old albums, searching the younger faces of my family to see what they held. And I photograph these kids because they are perfect. Dear, and smooth skinned perfect. I want it to last. Photographs are what I have to still the too-quick moments. He is fleeting is a collaboration between myself and my nephew Ronin. Started around the time he started protesting at my camera, something that had been a constant in his life from the day he was born. And in his protestations; ‘That’s enough’, ‘Don’t’, ‘Not when I’m naked’, ‘I don’t want you to photograph anymore’ made me realize that I take because it’s me who understands the value of the thing that is taken. But what I wondered, as I cajoled him into posing for me again and again, pouting and grumping until he acquiesces, is what happened to asking him permission like I would with anyone else I photograph? So I stopped. I want the photographs I take of him to be ones that I make a formal request for. I want to record the bribes I offer for them. I want transparency. For me. For him, who has agreed to participate on the proviso that the work we make be shown “in the gallery”. |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |