The 2017 Love Letters Exhibition

The 2017 Love Letters Exhibition by Aline SmithsonFebruary 14, 2017

©Matilde Viegas, Holding, Porto, Portugal

– I feel whole, ever expanding, reaching you.

Happy Valentine’s Day! Sending love and appreciation to our readers and wishing you a day filled with roses and hearts and candy and kisses. Many thanks to Lenscratch Editor Grant Gill for compiling this two part post and to all the photographers who shared who and what they love.

©Graham Wiebe, Chantel and I, Winnipeg, MB

– You said, “I can see you in my bed”

©Suzanne Révy, Ladders, Carlisle, MA

– A rare moment when the ones I love the most sat still long enough for a photograph! Love to you all! xoxo

©Page Perrault, Untitled, Athens, GA

©Ellen Feldman, Couple in a Paris Café, Paris, France.

©Daniel Duarte, Mom and I, Boston, MA

© Loretta Ayeroff, The Cage of Alzheimer’s, Los Angeles, CA

portrait washington dc, portrait northern virginia, portrait leesburg

©Julie McCarter, Sanctuary, New Orleans, LA

-Dear Mom,

This year I was delighted (and relieved) to discover that there is a place within me where my connection to you lives eternal, a sanctuary of sorts. This image transports me there.

I love you. Julie

©Nikki Gardner, Portrait of David, Williamsburg, MA

– I remember falling in love summer 2003. The pink flower, Yo La Tengo show in Denver, basketball during the Summer Writing Program, nights when you came into the restaurant where I worked for dinner, the old Pentax I taught you how to use, listening to vinyl records in your basement apartment, the night before you left on a plane.

©Pablo Charnas, I love you, Poland, Cracow

©Andi Schreiber, Anita’s 80th, Boca Raton, FL

– Mom, I am truly blessed to have you in my life. I love you beyond.

©Heather Lewis, The Beginning of Something, Atlanta, GA

©Souki Belghiti, The Drown Portrait, Morocco

– Sometimes, I wonder who you are.
Dangling in front of me, but not quite within reach.

©Ellen Cantor, S Freud, Chicago, IL

©Richard Skoonberg, First Bath, Lawrence, KS

©hannah kozak, Sarah & Feijoa Tree, Los Angeles, CA

-To my funny & beautiful niece Sarah,
I love you because you are perfect exactly the way you are.

©Emily Larsen, untitled, Shelter Island, NY

– A cool spring in the scorching wastelands of societies expectations of young women, you embrace your own inherent worth and trudge your own path.

©Tay Sanders, Bathtub, Seattle, WA

– For Lo,
To whom I owe the world.

©Barry O’Connor, Untitled, Beacon, NY

©Serge J-F. Levy, Consistency is not a human trait., Tucson, AZ

©Sabrina Henry, Into Darkness, Vancouver, BC

©Natalya Reznik, Looking for my Father, Perm, Russia

– Dear father!

Sometimes I just want to look at the photos, when you and my mother are kidding together, kissing each other and smile a lot,

and imagine that you, my father, although I never met you, was as beautiful as Belmondo.

Even if this photo never existed, I should have created it in Photoshop.

©Marcin Kaliński, Lovers, Gdańsk, Poland

©Sarah Midkiff, White Tail, Richmond, VA

– And in these moments in between, you caught me.

You caught me, red handed, falling for you.

©Blake Lewis, lost in you, Brighton, United Kingdom

– Tangled in the sheets in the morning sun, I got lost in your glow. I’ll never want to leave or let it grow dim.

©Eric Bailey, Head in the Clouds, Grand Canyon National Park, AZ

– You are a true companion, making my life an endless adventure.

12670207_10153159599836292_7638763081967974615_n copy

©Lauren Giebitz, A Love Letter to San Francisco, San Francisco, CA

– To my City by The Bay, I miss you always. A warm smile, and yet here I stay, as you pass me by, on your way.

©Susan Rosenberg Jones, Second Time Around: Taste, New York, NY

– Joel, I’m always ready for a taste of you.

©Isabella Sommati, Love Letter, France

©Michelle GD, His Glasses, Purcellville, VA

– For seeing me. And for letting me see you.

NY Post: FEA-071201BOOKLLS:New York City,NY July 12, 2001 --- 071201 READING BY MOONLIGHT--A street book vendor at 68th and Columbus gets engrossed in one of his own books for sale today on the Upper West Side today. EXCLUSIVE --- Lawrence Schwartzwald Pay Per Use

©Lawrence Schwartzwald, A Crack Salesman, New York, NY

– I Love this Bookseller on Columbus Avenue, reading one of his own books for sale (July 2001), for many reasons, but especially for being the impetus and inspiration for The Art of Reading, a photo essay, my collection of candid images of readers.

©S. Adam Cook, Hidden Face or (Manner of Operating Modern Portraiture), Lafayette, LA

– To a genuine muse, a genuine sentiment. Merci beaucoup.

©Todd Davis, Chimera 479, St Louis, MO

– Just cold gems set in memory
Of the one I used to love

©Venelina Preininger, Lost valentine, Tokyo, CA

©Ralkur Ulfbjörn, Alessandra, Ringling College of Art & Design

©Carl Shubs, Modeling, Los Angeles, CA

–I love street photography, which is what this photo is: a captured moment, unposed and unstaged. This is life as it happened that day at that place.

©Andrey Raychev, Reach, Vama Veche Romania

©Mark Pariani, Lover’s Lock, St. Augustine, FL

– Love holds us and takes our hand . I will hold your hand and love all of you. I wish to always feel the warmth of your love and caring hands protecting me as I hold you close to my heart from now until the end.

– Can’t believe you’d ever dance with a guy in a tank top. But I know you’d tease him about it for a zillion years to come.

-An image that embodies everything that I love about my wife, best friend and soulmate.

– Since 1967, I have loved you New Orleans! From the North Shore to the French Quarter, and from Camellia Grill, to the 9th Ward, I consider you magical, mysterious and personal.

Landcape view of the 1855 constructed West Rigolets Lighthouse photographed in color on Lake Pontchartrain one month before it was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina

– Dearest Anthony,
Thank you for being my muse.
Love always, Eileen

– 2016, Catriona, my first love, holding a photograph I took of her in 1964. It was also my very first photograph, Oban, Scotland.

– That moment where I knew I’d fallen in love with you, this was it.

– You give me tulips to photograph. For the first time I feel loved, safe and happy. We met, after a few hours you gave me a key to your flat and I stayed.