“So Dee, what are you doing these days? Oh yes, you are portraying old women, right? And … why exactly are you doing that?”
Almost everyone that knows me was super surprised when I gave up my “flashy-fashion-photographer-working-around-the-world” career because I was pregnant and decided I wanted to be a full-time mother for my son for the first 4 years of his life. It was an instinctive, kind of primeval mother feeling, and after 2 fabulous international careers in fashion, I was ready for a 3rd career at home as a mother.
Soon my beautiful son will turn 4 years old. We chose a school for him the other day that he will attend for the next 8 years. Am I ready to let go of his hand? No, I am not. When people ask me what bothers me most about aging it’s the fact that it passes very fast. Giving birth to Finn feels like yesterday. Where did those 4 years go? He grew from a tiny baby into a little boy before my eyes but I only blinked once or twice. He is my living proof that life passes incredibly fast. At times it makes me feel sad, it frightens me occasionally because ultimately it brings me, every day a little closer, to the end.
“I have everything I need to be happy right between my ears.” Jane Jarvis
Why did I, when I picked up photography again after a long “mommy sabbatical”, choose to portray women over 40 and up? Because I needed to give my life more value, more meaningful content with a longer expiration date than a fashion image. &Bloom is a journey into aging, my personal journey and therefore, a long-term project. I want to create relevant content of a, in my opinion, major problem, the current view of society on aging. This project is my aging process, I am getting older every day, together with a lot of other beautiful women that I portray. Originated from a curiosity for other women’s life experiences, attitude towards aging, and a lack of cool media inspiration for women my age. Because why are women over 40, 50, 60 and older less seen in the media then young(er) women? Why does aging have such a negative reputation? Why does everyone want to stay and look young, while we are all aware of the fact that staying young forever is an impossible wish?
With each portrait, I want to share a piece of a personal story, whether it is my story or that of a woman I have photographed. I believe that stories create empathy and empathy is the most revolutionary emotion. I feel that with every portrait, I capture a beautiful woman forever. The timeless proof of ageless beauty, inside and out. Growing older, I am getting more aware of my place in the big picture. I’m just a tiny drop in the river of time. And while I am here, in the here and now, I want to enjoy growing older and wiser without constantly being reminded that my appearance no longer meets society’s expectations because I am starting to have wrinkles, my hair slowly turns gray, and my skin starts to sag. Sharing the journey of aging together with so many other women from all over the world, who go through the same stage of life as I am now, or have gone through already and tell openly about it, is a true-to-life inspiration for me. #REALNESS
