Two Lovers, One Sun
Fuji FP-3000B Polaroid
2024
b. 1992
Lives and works in New York, NY
studio@thomastytran.com
He was a backcountry skier and life was the untouched powder. He liked to shoot, go all in, cast a fishing line as far out as he could, throw the dice, play russian roulette. He didn’t want an experience if he could control it, know which way it would turn out. There was something about surrendering to chance that seduced him, drew him in, like trusting a woman he knew he would always come back to no matter how many times he left her. He could never have enough of playing the odds; as soon as he started to settle down somewhere, like mud slowly falling to the bottom of a river, his spirit would stir him up again the way a startled fish jolts that same mud. He could feel when he was cheating, going back to the old, tried-and-true approaches he had used before. That meant it was time to cut loose. He needed that feeling of danger, the rawness and authenticity of it. There was no point in being safe. He felt the same way about life that a free-solo rock climber feels about his ascent; what made it meaningful was that he could slip off and die at any moment. He liked to go off cliffs, ride his bike in narrow lanes of hostile traffic, because it woke him up, focused him and made him feel alive. For him, the path was as steep as infinity — uncompromising, undiluted, yet still soft as down feathers.
He was the life of any party he went to. But rather than being like a megaphone that cuts above the noise, he was more like a bushfire in the dead of night that dazzled the eyes of ancient peoples. He didn’t like to overexert himself, try hard to make a mark. His power was one of suction, letting his aura do all the work of drawing people into his spiritual osmosis. As soon as they met him, anyone with their wits about them knew in their bones that he knew something about life that they didn’t. He added elliptical insights to the conversation that needed unpacking, but pierced below the surface as deeply and sharply as a long needle into skin, or an olympic diver whooshing into the crystal clear waters from a great height. He was the epitome of sincerity, but like a wizened zen priest he had a mischief-making streak. From time to time he liked to test his ability to put on a show, telling wild tales, cracking jokes, enchanting and beguiling women at the table with his boldness and wit. Coming from a small town in America’s far west, it was the only way to capture the attention of these rich cosmopolitan girls who thought they had seen it all.
He liked to open people up quickly like a surgeon, at times before they were ready. He was a pop quiz life threw at you whether you were ready for it or not. The heart of the matter, the good stuff, the dirty details, were too good to let lie fallow in the fields of social convention. Any time he found himself in a room with people, he’d ask more questions than anyone, using them to orient himself, to trace the texture of people’s insides the way a bat uses echolocation to trace the contours of the night sky. To those who carried heavy weights, he was the confessional priest they didn’t know they needed. To those who preferred to guard themselves, he was the papparazzi at the door. Either way, he knew more about you than you knew about yourself. Now that was some cold water in your face in the morning.
He knew how to leave an impression that lasted in others’ memories, but also how to disappear without a trace, lightly as a blood-crimson leaf falling from a tree at the height of autumn. He didn’t like to take space, he said — he liked to make space. Time was another space he liked to cut off in big, unmeasured chunks, like a joyful child tearing off a piece of bread with his hands. They say time waits for no man, but his sprawling nonchalance gave the impression of making time wait for HIM.
He resisted forcing himself into social shapes, avoided putting on a pretty face to appease anyone who might demand something of him. With him, you got a look in the mirror, photoshop not included. He had something that an intellectual who travelled to remote islands in Papua New Guinea once said that the native people had — something different in their eyes, something far more at home, centered, embodied, than those used to being swaddled in the cradle of modern specialization. He didn’t want his life cubicled, outsourced, cordoned off from the whole. If modern life was an assembly line, he wanted to be the craftsman who did it all from start to finish. He trusted his gut above all else, his way the shadowy path of instinct, intuition.
He’d hang around people on the edge, because they reflected back to him where he wanted to be. One time, a guy he had met in the park started to lose his grip on life, pulled a gun on him on the street as a joke.
The great outdoors and anything in motion was his home more than anything at rest. If he could have it his way, he’d carry his life in a suitcase, letting go of the creature comforts and working in the studio. He even wanted his place of work to be in the middle of motion, because he liked building things on the unstable foundation of quicksand — That was the whole thrill of it. He considered moving to a quiet residential neighborhood, then thought better of it, realizing he needed to be in the mix of the right kind of chaos. He was at his best while in transit, improvising like a jazz musician over the chord changes life threw at him, getting what he needed on the fly. He liked to play with words for their color, speaking in riddles he didn’t feel the need to solve by analysis.
- Dylan Rothman, 2025
IG - @thomas_t_tran