shashasha

“The portrait of my daughter reproduced on this book’s cover reflects a transition I both resisted and longed for. In this moment, a daughter ceased trying to please her father, which went against her every impulse leading up to the release of the shutter, and then regathered on the other side of this instant. This picture signals the moment she allowed herself to inhabit her body, to choose presence while tending to her enduring voice.”

Inspired by his daughter’s entrance into adulthood and her imminent departure from home, Raymond Meeks studies the centrifugal forces of the places we live – how they anchor us, repel us, and return to us – through scenes that appear both fragile and immovable. In these photographs, gardens give way to thicket, houses are suspended on stacked railroad ties, and telephone wires and train lines suggest the networks we build to find our way through the world’s wilderness.

Among these domestic landscapes are portraits of Meeks’ daughter, which capture the introspection and inquisitiveness of early adulthood while paying tribute to the ultimate mystery of their subject’s consciousness. Following the success of Meeks’ previous book, “cyprian honey cathedral”, “Somersault” is a concise, poetic reflection on home and the ties that bind us to it — all the stronger as they fade into the half-light.

“There’s a lot I could say about the girl in these pictures. I turn the pages of this book and am transported right back to that place. I’m reminded of those beautiful childhood years, and of all the things I became so critical of as I grew ip. With a few years between us now, I see a girl who wants something more for herself, but doesn’t yet know what that might be.”