The Queensland Centre for Photography has launched a new online magazine Lucida, and asked me to write an article about Red Light for it. You can find the original here, but I thought I’d put it up here as well.

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It’s 18 past one on a Wednesday afternoon and Bee stirs on the couch to the annoying ring tone of her phone. Surprised she has roused herself to answer (as its rung a half dozen unanswered times in the last hour) I look up from my computer and listen. She’s drugged and sleep deprived, hazy from the heaviness of her brief slumber. Her words are slurred and its not just me that takes a while to recognize the sounds she pieces together, I can hear the guy on the other end asking her to repeat herself.

“It’s $250 baby”, she slurs, “$250 with another girl… oh, anytime baby… In a couple of hours?” The transaction continues and I keep one ear half on it, but resume typing. I’m immune to these phone calls now, and the day must continue, I have many things to do. She comes to an agreement with the guy and hangs up the phone with a “Call me later baby” and rolls back to sleep (but not before she mutters something disparaging about filthy mugs and their filthy dicks).

Unperturbed I glance at her sleeping form and continue plowing through my to-do list. It’s impossible to be shocked by the transactions I see every day, the bartering for sex that occurs even on a sunny Wednesday lunch hour, when its me who hands over the condoms from the stash we keep for emergencies. Ditto for the drug use. I know how many fits the women grab from the box we keep in the second drawer, and I’ve come across about every euphemism you can imagine as they order from their dealers in front of me.

Catching the blasé shrug of my shoulders at today’s events, I turn my reaction over in my hands and look at it. I’m six months into this project and what’s de rigueur now was overwhelming not so long ago. I remember my first day in this place, a vivid Thursday that changed the whole course of my life. Usually relaxed and confident in even the most foreign situations I sat in the corner and tried not to stare at the confronting chaos unfolding in front of me. The women were drug affected, leery, with no discernable boundaries. To be perfectly honest they freaked me out.

They freaked me out so much in fact that when the germ of an idea planted itself in my mind, suggesting this was an opportunity to use my skills to give something back to a community who clearly needed, it I let it sprout but almost feared to water it. Would they, I questioned, ever accept me? I doubted. I found a grant that fitted my plans, but still I doubted. And then this came:

Hi Gemma,
I look at your work and wonder were you find the time to do everything. Your work,character, aspirations and confident mind frame serve as a strong inspiration……..Hope it all comes together just the way you want it.
We both know you’ll kick arse.
You have a lot of heart- and in combination with your work standard and ethic, i can’t see how anything could go wrong. Stay well-L.W

And that was it; I was sold. The grant application went in and the fingers got crossed.

I met LW. on that first day at Gatehouse and he’d been my saviour. A fast talking, frenetic guy with a hard history, and the most beautiful face; his eyes almond shaped, his hair a cascade of silky black to his shoulders. He spotted the camera on my shoulder and nosed up to me, curious, sussing me out. Glad for the chance to feel useful in a situation that had me flailing like being dumped into the rough sand by unruly waves, we spoke about art. And then he unrolled a canvas he had been working on and this amazing Basquiat-like image unfurled. I was impressed.

You’d think with such a generous character appraisal I’d had some profound effect on him; delivered a sermon on art that was so moving he was deeply changed, or critiqued his work with excessive generosity. But no, we just chatted. For a couple of hours we chatted while I watched the sex workers spin around the room on unsteady legs, drinking them in like a dry sponge in a puddle. And although his work was amazing I wasn’t overly effusive in my praise, I just told him it was good because it was good.

With that email came a realization for me. It’s the being there and giving a shit that matters; the small things like stopping for a chat. LW. didn’t need me to haul in like some fairy godmother and rescue him from his (sometimes) shitty life. He just wanted, like I did, to talk about art. In his words I saw that I didn’t have to divine some project that would rescue these women from their (often) shitty lives. That to make a difference I just had to offer them a voice. An offer that is par for the course for any documentary photographer; voices are our stock and trade.

And thankfully his words did come; I got the grant, and made the move to Melbourne, tempering my ambition by allowing myself to take the time to stop and have a chat. It’s been a slow brewer this year, this project, and the creeping pace has certainly taken some digesting. I’m a newspaper girl; more used to rushing and stealing the shot, BANG BANG BANG. I have to have the book to the printer in four months, and I’ve watched too much and shot too little to sleep even remotely easy. But reminiscing over his words reminded me to leave my computer and take a moment to cover Bee with a blanket.

LW. taught me a lesson, more valuable than any I, the teacher, could teach him. His gift was a realization I could take my time, to be unhurried and unworried about the outcome, enjoying instead, the journey. Of course I want this project to be successful, this is my baby, and I want it to be born whole and perfect. I want its milestones to be remarkable, to prove the worth I dreamed at its inception. But I think my measure of success is different now.

I stand over Bee watching her sleep for a moment. On that very first day last year I would never have believed I would grow to be so at ease in this world. I hate that the woman who lies curled up on the couch sells her body to fund her drug habit, but despite my best intentions I know now that a book isn’t going to make a profound difference to her life. But you never know, taking the time to get to know and love her enough to cover her with a blanket just might.