backstage: the laying on of hands

Been feeling a little fragile lately, for a variety of reasons too stupid to go into here, which makes me all the more chuffed to bits at the kindness of people, publicly and privately. Your prayers for our UMS car, for starters! It worked! He's home, safe and sound.

So many images I want to show you.. I know everyone's moved on, the attention is on Paris, but I also know that those of you who come here obviously aren't coming for the latest fashion news. And I keep going backstage, back to the images I shot there.. I can't explain, sometimes it feels really crazy back there but there's also this unbelievably quiet peaceful feeling. All these people, working really hard, doing a really good job, and yet it's so cooperative and professional. Not at all bitchy or competitive, but really peaceful, actually.



I was watching that great show again last night, The Model Agency, and thinking about these girls.. I know I'm rambling, kind of thinking out loud, but I've spent a lot of time before I went to Florida in the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, visiting Major Bobby. (And btw: thank you for your prayers for him. He is now home safe and sound, we even had a wonderful little tea party the other day!)

Anyway, what I was thinking is how similar a hospital is to backstage before a catwalk show. Hear me out please. The whole purpose of a hospital is to care for the patients. And the purpose of backstage is obviously, caring for the models, or the 'money girls' as last night's show touched upon.





There is a lot of laying on of hands. The men and women who make it happen - the hair and make-up people - are just delightful, and beautiful in a different way than the models. The models - like patients in a hospital - are often not quite present. They are resting, saving their strength, because, minutes after these photos were taken, they would have gone forth with the lights and the music and all the people watching them, and something that was about to occur: a performance, a group connection, an energy, a kind of ritual so primitive it's almost a tribal celebration, would be about to take place, and it would come from these girls.



But before that can happen.. in both places, the hospital and backstage, there is a kind of spiritual reverence taking place: a healthy human being is giving something to another human being. Strength. Kindness. Love, in a way. And, having been touched in that way, they go forth, healed, into the world. Or onto the catwalk.

Okay, enough chit chat. It's time for me to go forth into the world. And I hope that even if I can't touch someone with kindness today, at least I won't cause anyone any harm.