To “fall in love” is a strange phrase, which implies something beyond our control with an inevitable hard splat when we eventually hit what we are falling towards. To fall in love requires a surrender of self to the relationship and a dependence upon it for one’s happiness.

 

It doesn’t take much of an effort to fall, but the inevitable crash at the end of it is when the crush you had for the person disintegrates, and you end up resenting your ‘ex’ for not keeping you within the ecstasy of that falling feeling. 

 

I propose the goal must be to reject falling and learn to fly! 

 

Remember the words of the Jackie Wilson song, “Your love keeps lifting me higher.” To fly in love is to be filled with the desire to be a better person, to be responsible for your happiness, and to be devoted to manifesting your growth and your inner journey of ascension while simultaneously supporting your partner to do the same. In this way, true love will lift you as you and your partner strive to help one another be all you can be, what Maslow describes as self-actualisation.

 

This series is my visualisation of flying in love with a cheeky nod and a wink to Philippe Halsman’s jumpology series of photographs from the 1950s. I end this introduction with a quote from the Dalai Lama XIV: “Give the ones you love wings to fly, roots to come back and reasons to stay.”

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This series will probably be a chapter in my next photobook due out in the autumn of 2024.