Magic
I've been in love with light and water for as long as I can remember.
As a child in Paris, I would lie in bed and see magic moving on my ceiling—I didn't know the word "reflection" yet. To me, it was actually magic. I knew immediately: the Eiffel Tower was glittering. Light was calling me. I would run across our apartment to my father’s office window to watch the tower shine with a thousand stars.
This is one of the first times I remember feeling called by light.
Growing up between Paris, Barbados, Ibiza, and St. Moritz, I found that same magic everywhere. On the ocean in Barbados—scintillating stars across the water, silver pathways that turned gold at sunset. I would swim for hours until my fingertips were like raisins, then lie in the sun, melting into everything around me, floating in a warm, peaceful void. In Ibiza, endless boat days spent admiring the water, watching light play across the Mediterranean. In St. Moritz, ice particles catching light, scattering like millions of tiny stars across the snow.
This glittering is a childhood awe I will never tire of.
At NYU Tisch, the darkroom found me—a place where light and water create images together. Light passing through negatives. Water in the chemical baths. Magic appearing on paper. I changed my major to photography because I realized: I could spend all my time there, in this marriage of the two things I'd loved my whole life.
Every photograph in this series was made in NYC. I would often walk to the Hudson River Park piers, Pier 35, the fountain in Washington Square Park, or through Central Park to watch sunlight dance on the water. I saw magic in fountains, in puddles, in every body of water, and in every shimmer on the buildings and streets.
This is our relationship. I am attuned to them with love and they see me back. They call to me. Light and water are magic.
In the water, light becomes liquid—fracturing into stars, orbs, psychedelic shapes, abstract reflections. Once, they made me a heart, appearing for just a moment before dissolving back into movement.
These photographs are my way of remembering—that we're all connected, that magic is everywhere if you slow down enough to see it.
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Shot on Pentax K1000, 35mm film developed and scanned by hand.