I first met Susan last summer when I photographed her Danes, Kaya + Megan. (Megs has since passed away.) Then in January I received an email from Susan letting me know she had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer and that while she was inordinately lucky to have caught it in its early stages, she would be undergoing chemotherapy. And that she wanted to do a portrait shoot in the midst of it. She wrote that she knew her treatment would be the most “challenging, scary, life-affirming thing” she’d ever go through, and that documenting it was somehow important to her.
When Susan and I met for coffee this spring to go over ordering photos from our session with Kaya + Megan she was already in throes of chemo. We talked again about a portrait shoot, and she told me how even though some of the people in her life thought it was a crazy idea she couldn’t ignore the fact that it felt important to her.
I never hesitated to tell Susan I’d do this session. When I was seventeen I lost my mother to a different disease, but watched her go through the same treatment. There is a photograph of my mom and dad dozing on the couch together, limbs wrapped around each other, my mom completely bald from her treatments, my dad mostly bald from his genealogy. That photograph has always been important to me, though it is hard to explain why. Truth? My need for documentation? The fact that it feels like a testament to the way my parents loved each other?
What I’m saying is I understood why Susan wanted to have her picture taken in the midst of her treatment.
I wanted these photographs to show everything I saw: Susan’s beauty, strength, and feminity; her bond with Kaya; the way Kaya literally stands by her always, a callback to the Great Dane’s original purpose as a sentry. I wanted to make a photograph that Susan can look at later and feel the same way I do about that photograph of my parents.
Susan has a wig that she doesn’t really wear. It seemed obvious to me, given my affinity for dogs in wigs, that Kaya should wear it instead.
Last week Susan emailed me to tell me she had undergone her last chemotherapy treatment. Congratulations, Susan, and a most heartfelt thank you.
Have a wonderful weekend, y’all.