Robin de Puy - Randy - 2017

In 2015, portrait photographer Robin de Puy (Dutch, b. 1986) travelled across America on a motorcycle for her book If This is True ... Her 8,000-mile road trip had almost come to an end as she rode her Harley-Davidson through Ely, Nevada on 7 July 2015. That night a young boy rode past her. He rode fast, but in the split second she saw him she knew: she had to find out who this boy was. His name was Randy. Recalling their first encounter, she wrote: Randy, a fragile-looking boy, striking face, big ears - a puppy, a golden retriever waiting for the ball to be thrown, (too) naive. 'Can I photograph you?' I asked him. The question was met with a shrug and a look both anxious and curious, a look that seemed to say so much and so little, then he wholeheartedly said 'yes' . De Puy took his portrait, left town a few days later, and that was it - or so it seemed. Back home in Amsterdam, Randy popped into her mind from time to time. Ultimately, she found it impossible to meet this boy and leave it at that single image. From the end of 2016 to May of 2017, she met him three more times. In the photographs from these encounters, de Puy turns him inside out, looks at him, stares at him - and Randy lets her. Never before have I met someone who gives me so much space to watch, to observe him.