"T-shirts ex": Artifacts of broken relationships

EVERY DAY PHOTOGRAPHERS AROUND THE WORLD looking for new ways to tell stories or to capture what we previously did not notice. We choose interesting photo projects and ask their authors what they wanted to say. This week - a series of "Lovers Shirts" creative duo from Los Angeles Herclayheart. This is a story about the relationship ended and things of former lovers, which inevitably cause a whole whirlwind of memories and emotions, and not necessarily sad ones.

Hannah: The idea of this project was born to me when I realized that I still wear a T-shirt of my first boyfriend, whom I met at school. There is something special about these things - soft, worn and full of holes. My last guy had a whole stack of old t-shirts that I regularly borrowed. Once he asked me why girls love to pull boyfriend t-shirts onto themselves — that was where curiosity awoke in me. When we broke up in 2012, he left with all his belongings, and just as I missed him, his smell and arms, I missed his T-shirts. But the main thing - I wanted to understand whether other people have similar sensations? What do the things that remain after the once close people mean to them? All this longing and anxiety ultimately resulted in a series of photographs of "Lovers Shirts", which we shoot with friend Karla Richmond Coffin in her small garage.

We started the project with 20 participants, all of them we found among relatives and friends. And they didn’t expect the incredible effect that the shooting process had on the participants and ourselves. A photo session with each hero lasts 20 minutes, the first half of the time a person spends sitting in front of a mirror in a T-shirt of a loved one and just looks at his reflection. At this moment something magical begins to happen: people share the most precious memories, Karla starts photographing, and I ask questions. We never condemn the project participants: if the heroine misses the former after seven years of separation - this is her right; if she is married, but still not sure that the husband is the only one, there is no condemnation. This is an incredible and highly inspiring experience - to observe the deep and such intimate experiences of people. Despite the secrecy of the emotions we studied, none of the characters ever left the shooting upset. Touched, enlightened, inspired, immersed in bright nostalgia - such people come out of our small studio.

All our heroes take part in the project anonymously. We remove people of different gender, ages and sexual preferences. Our youngest heroine, Gracie, is 16 years old, and the oldest is Louise, 91. Our project continues, and applications for participation come from all over the world. We publish all the photos of the heroes on herclayheart.com, the pictures alternate with the statements of the participants - also anonymous. From these quotations we made up something like a poem, which for us sounds like a universal love story.

I can't stop flying. It comforts me in the meantime between the spaces. It was just a rag. I turned into a promise.

Some sort of common thread between us. Part of me wants to rip it off. So many what-ifs and could've-beens And should've-beens and never-weres.

It's just a shirt. It has been. It makes me feel childish and taken care of. It makes me look a little stronger than I am.

She is never completely out of my life. I'd wear it every day if I could. As much as you can

You can still love it. Even if it’s painful we need to hold something. Proof that we did it. That we went through it.

That we learned something. That our hearts were broken. That we were loved. That we weren't loved enough. I’m not so shed.