Sometimes you have to leave the plan
New York
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.
And photograph their evening.
The next morning, at nine, I had to show the photographs.
I was terrified.
This was completely outside my comfort zone.
As the evening went on, I became increasingly aware of one thing:
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.
I just had a very clear feeling:
Talk to her.
My plan was taking me somewhere else.
But 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.
We talked while she went about the ordinary things that make up a day.
Taking care of her son.
Bathing him.
Moving around the house.
We discovered that we had quite a few things in common.
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.
Something had begun.
At the time, I had no idea where any of it would lead.
And perhaps that is what I love most about this story.
I had a plan.
I left it.
I trusted something I couldn't explain.
And met a stranger who opened her door.
There is something almost poetic about the fact that she 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.
Sometimes we need a plan.
And sometimes life quietly asks us to leave it.
To pay attention.
To trust what we feel.
To step towards something before we know where it will take us.
That evening, I did.
And something new began.
Perhaps some of the most important things do.