Fri 5th of December 2008 – Behice

This is Behice, one of the people that responded to my ad on the website Gumtree, asking for people to have their portrait taken.

Towards the end of the session she told me she could cry on demand, whenever she wanted to. I asked her to cry and a minute later she was in tears. She told me she did it by using bad memories. Suddenly I had a genuinely distressed woman in my house, whom I was taking pictures of.

It feels quite uncomfortable taking photographs while someone is that sad, but then again, that was the whole point.