more about the project
It all started the summer of 2018. I was sitting around with a girlfriend discussing how cool it would be to have a coffee table book with beautiful portraits – both written and photographed — on the subject of ordinary women. When I say ordinary, I mean any woman, every woman. I wanted to interview these women and find out a little something deeper about them, something I wouldn’t learn from simply mingling at a party or staying on script in a conventional way. I wanted something more raw. I would compile their stories and people would leaf through and hopefully connect with a stranger based off their profile.
September of 2018 I decided to just have a go at it. I started by interviewing friends and family. I tested out my interview skills, honed my profile writing craft and just had fun with it. No business plan, no goal or overall end objective, just writing for writing’s sake. But, it didn’t take long for “fun” to become something a lot more meaningful.
Each woman I interviewed had a lot to say. Each supposed “ordinary” woman was extraordinary in her own way. Each life, so humbly described, was its own world. I unearthed so much in the short hour I spent with each woman – we bonded, we connected, and I learned that I have something in common with every single stranger, whether it was a belief, a similar experience, or something completely arbitrary. I learned so much. I learned that I was searching for the meaning of happiness, I learned that I needed more insight into how the nuclear family works, into the significance of the role of the mother, and so on. I also became intimately familiar with the fact that people just want to feel heard and seen; have someone to talk to and connect with.
Then it would come time to sit alone with my notes and that blinking line on my blank computer document. The work was tremendous. How would I reflect each woman’s story back to her, honour her words, her life, her feelings? How can I stay tightly connected to her point of view without imposing any of my own? There are incalculable ways of interpreting a story. But, listening to a person, hearing her point of view, suspending judgment, well, it’s harder than it may seem, but I cultivated the skill and it simply opened my mind to the infinite ways in which a person’s life and breath can shift something as minuscule as a metaphorical comma.
I’ve been working as a copywriter for well over a decade. On one job site, I met a wonderful photographer with whom I had to work for social media purposes. We got to talking. It should be disclaimed that I never chased a story – I never looked for someone with a sensational life so that I could document it. I always interviewed any and every woman I met, because, that was the only rule I gave myself – ordinary women… every woman. And, as I’ve always known, and this project confirmed, we all have a story. And so did Jenni.
We met for coffee, we interviewed, we cried, we connected. And just like that, we had a collaboration. She would capture the public person, the external being, the woman in her natural habitat. Photograph the woman as she is known to her friends, family, co-workers. She would provide the other half of the woman – and together, the holistic essence of each woman would be conveyed. Jenni completed this project in a way that allowed for another level of authenticity. On a deeper, parallel level, she also manifested a new layer of possibilities that emerged from the process: a friendship.
All photos for this entry by @sewze