Sometimes you have to leave the plan

New York, 2016

I was living in New York when, during a workshop at the International Center of Photography, I was given an assignment.

Spend an evening with a complete stranger.

Find someone I had never met.

Ask if I could follow them home.

Photograph their evening.

The next morning, at nine, I had to show the photographs.

I was terrified.

This was completely outside my comfort zone.

But as the evening went on, one thing became increasingly clear:

I had to do it.

So I made a plan.

I knew where I was going.

I got on the subway.

And then I saw her.

A woman with her young son.

There was something about her.

I couldn't explain it.

Just a very clear feeling:

Talk to her.

My plan was taking me somewhere else.

Something in me said: this way.

So I listened.

I walked over and introduced myself.

We started talking.

She was interested in photography herself.

I told her about the assignment.

She called her husband to ask if he was comfortable with a complete stranger coming home with her.

He said yes.

And before I quite realised what was happening, we were sitting together on the subway.

On our way to her home.

She opened the door.

And for one evening, she let me into her life.

I photographed the ordinary things that make up a day.

Taking care of her son.

Bathing him.

Moving around the house.

We talked.

She had travelled extensively.

She had recently become a mother.

And she was a doula.

I had never heard the word before.

She told me about her work.

About women.

About birth.

About being there for someone during one of the most intimate moments of life.

Later that evening, another doula came by.

They talked about their work.

I listened.

I photographed.

And something in me became curious.

I had gone out that evening looking for photographs.

Instead, I had walked into a world I didn't know existed.

I wanted to know more.

Not long afterwards, that curiosity brought me into another New York apartment.

This time, photographing my first newborn.

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Something had begun.

At the time, I had no idea where any of it would lead.

There is something almost poetic about the fact that the woman I approached that evening was a doula.

A woman whose work brought her close to birth — one of those moments in life that cannot be entirely planned or controlled.

I had a plan.

I left it.

I trusted something I couldn't explain.

And met a stranger who opened her door.

That evening, I had gone looking for photographs.

Something had begun.