Over a span of six years we have collaborated. She was nine years old then, photographed as she stood in front of her school of dance. She was the second to allow me her portrait that morning, in front of a hundred or so friends and parents as they waited to enter the building for their classes.
My time with her has taught me that she is a beautifully complex, young woman. With her friends she is outgoing, with us she is less so… yet in a most gentle manner. She accepts to be photographed every single time, and asks about the other girls from that first day. She loves the color black, and paints her fingernails so for us sometimes.
A few years after her first photograph she wondered if we would still photograph her once finished with dance. The expression on her face made me want to photograph her even more so. She is now perhaps sixteen years old, and I wonder how she feels about this project. This summer I will ask her this question, and can only hope for the best. My gut instinct is that she will smile like in that first photograph, and make any doubts disappear for good.
www.halimina.org
Note: These images were made with a Hasselblad V System, onto Fuji Neopan Acros 100 ISO film.
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