Jared Ford

Coming Soon

I came here on a job assignment after I left Berlin. I felt depressed as I rode the train out of Paris. It was wonderful reconnecting with my childhood friend and first love Jane Harper, but even though we spent nearly a week together, I could feel there was a vague wall between us. I had not expressed my love to her very well in university that first year, and my dorm roommate Benji Brown was quick to move in behind me. It seemed he and Jane had for a time found some connection that we never achieved. But Benji was a cad and he was balling not only Jane, but Sophia and Mia and other girls. Jane and I got 'back together' at the end of the year, and it seemed we had 'found' each other's love through the last years. Then graduation came, and all I had to do to be with Jane is to stick with her and be her fashion photographer and record her pursuit of her dream.

But I had changed. To make money to pay my parents for their house they sold me, I took on photo shoots to create portfolios to aspiring fashion models. One of them only was doing that to get herself through journalism school... Rebecca Kennedy. It somehow lit a fire under me to become a photojournalist, and I adjusted some of my classes to pursue this career. Trouble was it had sent Jane and I on two very different paths. Breaking up with Jane after graduation was one of the hardest things I have done. After the tears and the hugs and the farewell sex, I felt a rock lodge in my gut as I watched her go through airport security and disappear into the crowd.

We had agreed to stay in touch, and we did for a time. But as the year passed, the calls became less frequent as we texted more. Then the texts became less frequent as we got busy with our careers. Then we stopped communicating all together. So, yes, it was a beautiful moment when we crossed paths in Paris some ten years later despite the trouble I brought with me. I knew then that I could never put Jane in that kind of danger ever again.

In Berlin, I met a mutual friend... well, she was Jane's best friend in university. They too went on different paths after university, but they always stayed in touch. Did it feel odd when Sophia and I made love in her hotel room? Yes, it did. But I couldn't resist, and I closed my eyes and thought of Jane as I did so.

More photojournalism took me to places I doubt I'd ever have gone to in my life, and I returned from East Timor to have a nice month in Phuket, Thailand creating starter portfolios for aspiring models. That was when I met Jennifer Lee. She wasn't a model, but a local girl who worked at the hotel we were staying in. But after a few snaps, I could tell she was a natural for the camera lens. I had taken a few pictures, but she caught me doing it. I offered to delete them since I didn't ask permission, but she was pretty chuffed about it. We had a coffee and talked, and she agreed to allow me to capture her with my camera, so I spent a good part of the day taking her picture...