Week 2: March 22, 2009

I find MysteryMan rolls his eyes much less when I’m not taking a picture of his face. Or else I can’t see him doing it, which amounts pretty much to the same thing.

For some time I’ve been wanting to photograph this man’s hands because they are so wonderfully full of character.

One look at them and you think,  these hands belong on a much older man. But MysteryMan is very much an old soul, and I’ve found these hands fit him perfectly. You might have guessed that he’s a man of few words, but very often his hands do the talking for him… when he’s helping his grandpa around his farmland, plowing the snow from his parents driveway, fixing his aunt’s roof, taking out my trash, or any other number of things he does to take care of his family on any given day.

Years ago my mother introduced me to Gary Chapman’s Five Love Languages, which is something that has helped sustain me in a relationship with a man who is a mystery to me more often than not. While occasionally short on words, he never fails to show his love for his family, friends– and occasionally this crazily independent woman he’s stuck with– through acts of service. So of all the pictures I plan to take of him this year, these portraits will probably be the ones that say the most about him.