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James Djordjevic

Nothing Would Hold

Zandvoort 2021

Model: Vincenzo Turiano

Clothing: Das Werk Haus

A man with windblown dark curls stands on a wide empty beach, hands in the pockets of a distressed panelled waistcoat.
The same man mid-turn on the sand, hair thrown across his face, arms wrapped over his chest as the coat swings out.
The man leaps across the beach in a white uniform, a long white cloth streaming from him like a wing, arms flung overhead.

Everything you grip too hard leaves anyway. The light, the year, the shape you were trying to keep. This was the afternoon I opened my hand.

Bare-chested and face-on, wet curls and sea spray on his skin, the flat grey sea behind him.
He kneels on the sand, a raw linen coat falling open from his shoulders and pooling around him, head bowed.
Seen from above, he kneels on a dune with the linen coat sliding off, bare torso, face lifted to the sky.

Years on, these pictures are not really about that afternoon anymore. They are about how a body keeps moving while the ground goes out from under it.

Close in, he drags both wet hands back over his face, the movement blurred, caught between a wince and a smile.
From behind: bare back and shoulder blades, head flung back in profile with wet hair flying at dusk.
Tight portrait, bare shoulders and one arm crossed over his chest, wet curls, a direct and unguarded look at the camera.