There is no reality beyond the one which lies in that momentary form which we succeed in conferring upon ourselves, upon others, upon things -Luigi Pirandello
As the remnants of your dream slip away, you wake up thinking about oranges—specifically the way the juice beads up against your fingers when you puncture the skin and slowly peel it off, the white fibers gently snapping as they fiercely cling to their fruit, and suddenly it’s 7:55. You tumble out of bed and over to your desk, flipping open your laptop to the files from yesterday’s shoot.
You started at the agency two weeks ago, after one of the photographers found your work on Instagram. Back then, editing was just an extension of shooting—light and contrast mere tools to make reality reverberate through a frame. Touching up models’ tear sheets isn’t nearly as rapturous, but there’s something satisfying, almost godlike, about perfecting the human figure. You deal in dozens of faces and bodies, retouching scars and stretch marks, curves and creases until they all run together.
Despite your mother’s chiding, there’s no dress code for working behind a screen. On weekdays you wear airy cotton pants and head to the dance studio at 2pm to teach the intermediate class. Your weekends are filled with rehearsals and long walks through the abscesses of Karachi’s urban sprawl, snapping photos of pigeons nesting in dried up fountains and paintbrushes soaked in petrol. You stay up late editing your favorite shots using the agency’s software license.
Your boss says you have an eye for detail—she’s never had much luck with outsourced editors. She increases your rate and offers you additional portfolios. This allows you to work fewer afternoons at the dance studio and spend more time sending your photos to various online outlets. One of your photos gets featured in a digital arts and culture magazine—a classical dancer steadily painting her fingertips crimson in the shadows of the stage—and you could not be more thrilled. You email the link to a couple of the photographers you work with and they comment on the lighting and color; no doubt you’re a magnificent editor. A model emails you that week and asks if you will retouch her sister’s wedding pictures.
You begin shooting more frequently and your subjects increasingly involve people—the silhouette of a tailor taking measurements, young women braiding hair into symmetrical plaits on the steps of a schoolyard. Layers, cuts, warmth, contrast, you’ve become so perceptive to perfection; the dance studio is just a blur of flesh covered with makeup and fabric. Staring yourself down in the mirror, you twist your limbs to create clear lines, explaining to your students how form curates perception. You spend hours selecting and editing photos, your own and others’. Some nights when you can’t sleep, you retouch photos of yourself, blurring mosquito bites, adding definition to muscles with the precision of a Greek sculptor trying to free a deity from marble. In the morning you close them out without saving.
Countless submissions later, you get scouted by a photography curator and are offered a full-time position at a magazine based in Milan. You lose your software license, probably for the best; the new publication has a team to handle edits. You move out of your family’s home and onto a street with cobblestones and traffic rules. Milan is a city of street cats and statues reflecting in rain splattered pavement. Your manager compliments your composition and creativity—not once does anyone say you are easy to work with. And you should feel liberated but instead it’s like you’ve opened Pandora’s fucking box. The more they praise you, the more you second guess yourself the next time you find a good spot of light or start to settle into an angle that feels natural. You have never been so terrified of rejection; when a photo gets cut by without explanation, you hyperanalyze every possible detail. What was missing? What could you have changed to make them see it?
Nevertheless, the staff love you; some call you mítica, a dated term of endearment according to your Italian course which literally translates to legend. You begin showing up to meetings in avant garde office wear and expensive perfume. At midday you test drive eclectic French fad diets while reading photography reviews, making insightful comments about light and dissonance to your colleagues. At what point does editing cease to be an extension of the photo itself? you ask as they nod thoughtfully.
You ponder this the next morning as you get dressed, almost failing to recognize the body you’ve lived your whole life in. You are tan lines and blemishes, stray hairs and asymmetry—a collage of stories only you can tell. Staring into your pupils as you apply mascara, you’re acutely aware that in the eye of each beholder lies a version of yourself that eludes mirrors, lenses, makeup and all your other futile attempts to know it, to give it form. And here, hundreds of miles from home, you’re proud to see her finally take the stage.
One of your photos makes the front page, and the Editor in Chief invites you out to celebrate. At the dimly lit table, you sit across from him and sip red wine while he boisterously flatters you. He calls you a rising star and asks you to comment on your work, bringing up pieces from publications you’d long forgotten about. Maintaining poise, you respond with thoughtful, charming answers, explaining the relationship between the camera and each subject you capture. Yet he refuses to be satisfied; pressing about your life and influences between bites of steak. With each shot you describe to him, he insists, “But tell me what it means to you?” Beneath the silk collar, your neck prickles with sweat, watching him roughly and desperately try to peel off your skin.
Sarina Tajuddin is a writer based in Washington, D.C., though her best work happens on the road. Her favorite genre is autofiction and her favorite place to write is the Algonquin Hotel in New York City.
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