We Love In This Way
An audiovisual document of the ways we love each other
“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where...
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
...I love you in this way...
because I do not know any other way of loving but this...
in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand...
... so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close.”
- Pablo Neruda, 100 Love Sonnets
Acknowledgement of Country
I acknowledge the Traditional Owners of Country throughout Australia, and recognise their continuing connection to lands, waters and communities. I pay my respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures; and to Elders past and present.
I currently reside on unceded Wurundjeri Country in Naarm/Melbourne.
Welcome!
This is a temporary website (and still under construction) to give information to prospective participants of the first trial phase of my new photography and videography business.
Thank you for showing enough interest to come here to find out more.
The name of the business is 'We Love In This Way' (WLITW), after the classic love sonnet above where the poet talks of the unknowable, miraculous nature of his love for his lover. And although I do believe there is an element of mystery about why we love and how, and I do think it’s important to marvel at the beautiful mystery of love, I want to try to help de-mystify it by giving people in love a chance to tell each other why and how they love each other. And to hopefully help others understand the beautiful complexity and commonality of how we love. To help build appreciation for uniqueness and commonality.
You can see some of my photography here.
Coming soon is a separate page of this website just for my ethical business ethos, and the products and services I use just in case this is of interest to people.
I hope you enjoy this space and my vision for the business, and hopefully we can work together.
About this business
This is a photography and videography business providing a completely new service (currently only) for people in romantic relationships.
The aim is to give people in love a safe space to help tell each other and maybe others, too, about their love and their love story. About how and why they love. To help honour and commemorate their journeys. Maybe even to help the relationship strengthen in the process of honouring it.
The service is comprised of:
1. An on-camera interview of a romantic couple together, guided by mini-questionnaires filled out over the weeks leading up to the interview; and
2. A photography and video portraiture session.
Each couple participating will receive:
1. One long video of the full interview;
2. Shorter interview videos, one per question of the interview;
3. Several shorter, more creatively edited videos combining interview footage, interview audio, portrait session images and music; and
4. High resolution edited photos from the portrait session.
This trial phase
WLITW is currently in the first round of trials to help me get to a point where I can launch the business. Because it is a completely new service offering, I am on a steep learning curve working towards products I feel are ready for prices that make the business sustainable, and will attract clients who believe my products are of a high enough quality that they are willing to hand over their hard earned money for a "non-essential" and new service.
Because this is an early stage in the trial phase, trial participants will not have to pay any money to participate. If you want to tip me there will be a payment link, but there are no expectations of you doing this.
In exchange for the products you will receive, you will participate in feedback of all elements of your experience, and give me permission to use the finished products on my website and business social media pages. However, after the interview you can request I not use some or all of the footage if you feel genuinely uncomfortable about what was revealed and documented.
I will start to charge low and incrementally increasing fees for each subsequent trial phase until I move up to the proper business launch, so if you recommend this business to other prospective clients, it is likely they will be asked to pay a small fee for participating, but this will be communicated to them from the outset.
About Me
My name is Katey Middle (she/her).
I am a professional photographer, and I started my first professional photography business in 2009 offering wedding and portrait photography. I eventually felt my passion for it fading because it didn’t quite feel right for my artistic yearnings.
Whilst living in Scotland doing a late-30's, post-divorce version of a (three year long!) gap-year, my love for complex love stories, interview documentaries and filmmaking combined with my photography experience to give me the idea for this business.
For the non-photography stuff: I have an economics degree but don’t like most things about capitalism. I write experimental poetry, short stories and fiction that I would love to publish one day. I believe liberation and meaningful connection are owed to all people, as well as to the Earth herself. I believe we need more conversations across the many divides we find ourselves surrounded by because there is a lack of empathy in the way the world currently operates that is hurting us all.
I want there to be more love in this world, in all its manifestations, from feeling little surges of love for our strange and complicated existence after experiencing a beautiful little moment alone, to the major expansive and nourishing relationships we have with other people that transform our understanding of ourselves and love. I also want us to honour the love that already exists, in all its many forms
About you (hopefully)
If you are right for this trial, you:
1. Are in a committed and stable relationship of two people (technical considerations currently limit me to one camera and two microphones);
2. Currently reside in, or in the surrounds of Naarm/Melbourne. This will likely expand to Eora Country/Warren/Sydney eventually.
3. Have been committed to each other for approximately one year at least;
4. Are currently in a place of relative stability as individuals, and within the relationship where there are no major issues or sources of tension unresolved;
5. Have never experienced and are not currently experiencing any forms of abuse or violence in *this* relationship;
6. Were over the age of 18 when your relationship began, or if under the age or 18, were the same age or very similar ages;
7. Have a full day uninterrupted available over the coming six weeks that you can set aside for the interview and portrait session, on a weekday or weekend.
8. Agree that if you have children, to try to have them babysat outside the home. If this is not possible due to things like breastfeeding or care needs, we can come up with an arrangement together;
9. Are similarly enthusiastic to be involved, rather than one partner having been lovingly strong-armed into participating by the other;
10. After you have participated, would be open to recommending this trial to some of your family and/or friends (in ways you feel completely comfortable with). Because this service is completely new, and I was living overseas and then living in rural Western Australia until recently, I don't have an inbuilt current and future client-base yet, so will be hoping personal referrals will help uptake;
11. Understand you will be expected to participate in honest and generous feedback as part of the process for getting the finished products; and
12. Believe that everyone has a story that is worthy of being told, and though you might feel a bit self-conscious about being interviewed, know you deserve to be.
How this will work
If you are on board with the idea of this, the next steps are:
1. You’ll both fill in the form at the bottom of this webpage;
2. If I think we are a good fit to work together after reviewing your responses, I will email you a contract for you to sign, then a link to some mini online questionnaires to get an idea of your relationship dynamic, history, and no-go or sensitive areas of discussion to help me construct the interview;
3. We will organise a full morning or afternoon for the interview and portrait session on a day you can completely and freely devote to it without distraction;
4. I will meet you in a quiet, private place (preferably your home) to interview the two of you on camera. This will take approximately 90 minutes to three hours with breaks. The interview will delve into deeper questions at times, but this will all be guided by the information I receive from you beforehand so that is appropriate to who you are and the natural dynamics of your relationship, and will hopefully be gentle and enjoyable, and you will feel safe and guided;
5. We will then do a portrait session on the same day, where I guide you organically to capture beautiful imagery of you together. One of the mini questionnaires will help me craft this session to be emotionally safe and authentic to you both. The session may be in a location away from your home agreed to by all parties for reasons such as aesthetics, practicality or sentimentality. This will likely take between 45 to 90 minutes;
6. After the portrait session, I will quickly get verbal feedback from you both about the questionnaire and the interview.
7. A few days after that, I will send you a link to a few online feedback forms for more comprehensive feedback after you've had time to reflect. Having received the feedback, I will send you a link to where you can download the digital finished products; and
8. I will then send you a link to an online feedback form for you to fill out about the actual products you received from me.
The ethics of this business
I am constructing this business to not just offer beautiful products, but to do a little bit of the work required to move the world into a way of being that is more sustainable and peaceful. Not just by fostering more understanding and love, but by being a business that is as ethical and non-violent as possible. This will be done in the following ways:
1. Ethical and low-harm business products and choices such as banks, website hosting and email hosts. You can find a list of these in the link here because my hope is that it can also help other consumers and business owners make more ethical decisions. You can read more about this on this website here;
2. An ethical pledge that prospective clients are asked to be on-board with (see below);
3. Three tiers of pricing that are opt-in for all clients based on income levels that will let low income clients be able to access this business, and with a certain number of free sessions per year for clients who are both low-income and are members of minority and/or marginalised groups; and
4. Aiding social justice and human rights activism by offering some free services to organisations for them to use for bidding in fundraising ventures.
Ethical framework
Prospective clients will hopefully agree with the ideals below:
1. Consenting romantic love is not just a basic human right, but vital to the health of the human collective. So all types of consenting romances/love stories deserve to be honoured without prejudice. This business will be for people of all genders, sexualities, ethnicities, cultures, consenting adult romantic structures, political and religious/spiritual views;
2. None of us are free until all of us are free; and
3. Art should not be removed from the work of collective liberation.
Additional considerations
Neurodiverse and differently-abled people are welcome with open arms. There will be a section in the pre-interview questionnaire for you to communicate to me if you require any specific accommodations. I want you to feel safe, appreciated and respected.
You will be able to control what areas of your relationship are covered in the interview. You can refuse topics such as sex, areas of trauma, and sensitive areas of your relationship history that you don’t want to discuss. There will be a specific mini questionnaire to tell me this information, and we can speak over the phone if necessary.
COVID considerations
Although I understand COVID precautions are not front-of-mind for many people anymore, out of respect to those who are immunocompromised and battling long-COVID, and asking us in the wider comnunity to still take pracuations where we can, and because I will be going into multiple people’s homes and sitting with them in enclosed spaces, I am asking that trial participants agree to take one RAT test three days before us meeting, then another the morning of, purchased at their expense. And I will do the same.
If you are immunocompromised and/or require more precautions, please let me know, and we can come up with a solution together.
Let's do this thing
If you feel called and excited to give this a go, thank you! I sincerely appreciate you from the bottom of my heart. Please fill in the below information, and I'll get back to you within five business days.
I'll need details for both partners including email addresses and phone numbers for each partner, because a few of the pre-interview mini-questionnaires involve questions answered individually.
For ease, 'Partner 1' is the partner who is the youngest.
Also, hit me with a flavour of your beautiful personalities, and let me know your *favourite* and *least favourite* love songs, and drop me a few lines about why. Passionate rants welcome and encouraged.
