To be in a relationship is similar to play on a rusted swing that moves back and forth. Almost violently, love can disappear at any moment, for any reason (or for no reason at all), like a child who suddenly falls off a swing. Or sometimes it slowly oscillates and fades away; just as children become adult imperceptibly, so impetuous passions become listless caresses and then fully disappear.
With a rare and disarming simplicity, Simon and Garfunkel’s April Come She Will perfectly describes all stages of a dying relationship using the melancholic metaphor of changing seasons.
The shades of fading love are also well captured in Jordan Tiberio’s photographic project Two Souls. On assignment for Upon Paper Magazine, the 21-year-old American photographer has closely followed a couple of friends on the verge of a break up.
As Maris, the girl in the photographs, explains “This is me. This is my ex-boyfriend Sam. We had been together for a year. We went everywhere together, we smoked the same cigarettes, we slept in the same bed. These pictures are weird to look at.” It comes as no surprise that this set of images is special for Maris. “They are real, tangible representation of something that changed my life and changed me for the better.”
When the pictures were taken, the couple was still romantically involved: “I thought that we were so in love”, admits Maris. By contrast, this nude portraits series reveals melancholic smiles and eyes, traces of tender nostalgia, along with a strong feeling of emptiness in togetherness. What Jordan captures is the myriad of conflicting, delicate and often irrational emotions that accompanies the experience of losing someone you love, of losing romantic feelings. Although this is a very personal, intimate moment, the resulting photographs are overall sublimely moving and haunting. Somehow Two Souls is not only about Maris and Sam; instead, it tells the universal tale of lost love, of “a love once new (which) has now grown old”.
