In the Atmos podcast ‘The Nature Of’, Willow Defebaugh, the editor in chief and cofounder of the magazine and wildlife photographer Amy Vitale say ‘Intimacy will save us’. They repeat it like a mantra, not just intimacy with others but also with the non-human world, with nature. Intimacy comes with getting closer.

​

The use of the point-and-shoot camera in 'Stay Longer' is deliberate. It enables this closeness and forces you to notice. Once you notice the shadow of this flower, then you can kneel on the soil and come closer to photograph her. The cropping is deliberate. In the same way, when Boittiaux photographs two people together, you might not always fully see both of their faces; it’s leaving something for outside the frame - just for them, for their intimacy.

 

Boittiaux’s mother used to tell her how she always had such an emotional way to notice and describe things around her, how she talked about the light. Noticing the details is a way to give space to the little, not-so-little things. When you give space and time to a river, you give it importance. A reason to care, to preserve it. The time is given to each of these photographs through the act of hand beading them. Stitching the beads onto the canvas one by one. It becomes sensory and precious - like nature, and it respects her rhythm.

​

‘Stay Longer’ is a slow, needed reconnection to nature and the landscape, intertwined with intimate portraits. Some are of brothers together and others of women in their 60's and 70's with their closest friends. A love letter without the words. Une façon de regarder, like when you deeply look at the person you love, and every gesture and wrinkle becomes something you wish to frame.