This wasn’t meant to be a photoshoot. I had simply asked a friend to capture a few moments of JAMES, and he agreed — eager to test out his newly bought Nikon Z6ii.

We shot candidly, in the soft, fading winter light, and it all wrapped up in just about 20 minutes. Later, he realized he had made a small mistake: forgetting to check the camera settings and ending up shooting in JPEG instead of RAW. (JPEG compresses the images, while RAW preserves all the unprocessed details, making it a superior choice for editing.)

But despite that, what he managed to capture feels special to me. The frames hold the quiet presence and energy of Jeebita, Sunlaicy, Eva, Mukut, and myself.

As I sit down now to share these photographs with you, I feel grateful. Grateful to have these glimpses — raw, imperfect, and real — of a small yet beautiful chapter we lived together.