“I didn't recognise myself any more.”

Seven months after her daughter was born, Camille didn't have a single photograph of herself. She booked a Kaina day without telling anyone.

Camille, 34 Geneva · The Experience Pass

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Camille's final portrait, looking straight ahead, calm and present

Her day

In four images

From arrival to portrait.

Every Kaina day follows the same movement: arriving, talking, letting yourself be photographed, and leaving with an image that stands as proof.

Camille arriving, still in her coat, arms folded across her stomach

9.12 am

She almost didn't come

« J'ai tourné vingt minutes autour du pâté de maisons. Je me disais : qu'est-ce que tu fais là, tu n'as rien à montrer. »

Camille in conversation, leaning forward, hands doing the talking

10.40 am

We talked, for a long time

« Personne ne m'avait demandé comment j'allais, moi. On m'avait demandé comment allait le bébé, pendant sept mois. »

Camille laughing in surprise at the lens, one hand in front of her face

2.25 pm

The first shift

« J'ai ri parce que c'était absurde d'être là, plantée devant un appareil. Et cette photo-là, c'est celle que je préfère. »

5.50 pm

What she took home

« Je l'ai imprimée. Elle est dans le couloir. Les jours où je doute, je passe devant. »

Her story

Camille, 34

In her own words.

Camille is 34 and has a seven-month-old daughter. She wrote to us on a Sunday evening, after looking for a photograph of herself to send her sister and finding none. “Seven months of my daughter's life, hundreds of photographs. And not one of me. I'd erased myself without noticing.”

The day didn't start with the camera. It started with a cup of tea and two hours of conversation, because that is where everything happens. Camille talked about her body, about what she called “the damage”, about the silence around it. About the tiredness too, and the guilt of naming it.

In the afternoon, in front of the lens, she laughed with embarrassment at first. Then she stopped laughing. The photographer asked for nothing — no pose, no smile. She waited.

“What I hadn't expected was that it wouldn't be about photography at all. It was about how much space I allow myself to take up. The images are just proof that, that day, I took it.”