As I may have mentioned in my last post from a couple months ago, I’ve been working on a series exploring my relationship with Neil from an outsider’s perspective. It’s a lot more difficult than I thought it would be. When I proposed the idea to a professor of mine, he thought it was great. I showed him a few shots that I had of Neil and he was eager to see more. I’ve been hesitant in photographing Neil for a number of reasons. The first, and most obvious reason: No one wants to see that shit. I mean, really. Who wants to look at a bunch of photographs of my boyfriend being an idiot? I definitely wouldn’t if I were you. The other reason stems from my freshman year of college when I first met Neil. I filled up roll after roll of 35mm film documenting my everyday life. Just a real real original project. Of course, most of it was either Cate or Neil. After developing all of the film and printing image after image of Neil’s face or belly, I started to feel less and less like a photographer. Not only was my professor and entire freshman year photo class sick of it, but so was Neil and more importantly, my parents (who pay the big bucks so I can go to this school). So I ditched the idea of ever photographing him again on a serious level. Both of us decided it was just lame.
Now, three years later, I’ve decided to revisit my relationship with Neil, but from a completely different perspective. I’m interested in the roles that people take on in their relationships with their significant others. I’ve decided to take an objective standpoint and view my relationship with Neil like I never have. In this series, I’ve started to photograph him taking on the “male” or “female” role in our relationship. Because he plays both, just as I do. Part of the project involves my position as a female in a male-female relationship. I play the ‘housewife’ (minus wife) role just as much as I play the man-who-comes-home-from-work-and-expects-a-drink-in-his-hand. There are times when I want to be the big spoon, and there are times when I want to be spooned.
Some of it I’ll show, some of it I won’t. And I guess worse comes to worst, I can just throw it all in a “Cornelius Bloem” folder and it will remain on my hard drive for years to come.
