Lou O’ Bedlam’s Friday Feature: Laura Taylor

By Lou Noble on July 31st, 2009

• Share
• Link to StumbleUpon
• 5 Comments

It takes a long time to really get to know someone. Nowadays, I think that fact has been relatively forgotten. Lots of people communicate on the internet (email, IM, text messaging) and try to shortcut that essential fact. They try to flood each other with personal facts, they attempt to convey – through their writing, through the pictures they post, the descriptions they leave, the comments they add – their essential nature.

But there really is no substitute for actual In Real Life contact. And even then, there is no substitute for the time it takes, the time it simply must take, to observe, to interact with someone, to see them in a variety of situations, to see them not as they Want to be seen, but as they are when they’re not aware they’re being observed.

So to say that I know Laura Taylor, that would be slightly less than correct. I’ve known this lady for almost a year, have seen her work as a photographer, drink as a newly-minted 21 year old, laugh at some of the ridiculous things I’ve said (and there are oh so many), cry from genuine problems that arise from having supported herself for half a decade.

I’ve seen her handle situations that would’ve caused many others to fold. I’ve been surprised by her tenacity, by her maturity.

And that, those things I have seen with my own eyes, those are, frankly, worth far more than the Story she has told me of her own life. Because those are simply facts strung together to create the narrative that is her personal history. That personal history, much like her self portraits, her blog entries, her IMs & texts, tells me perhaps some of the Whats of her life, but it doesn’t tell me the Whys. Doesn’t tell me how she’d necessarily handle things in the future. It doesn’t, for instance, tell me that she is an amazing photographer with a deft understanding of how to bring out, in a photo, a person’s unguarded nature.

It doesn’t tell me that she is a devoted friend, of the kind and strength you don’t find too much, these days.

It doesn’t tell me about her ability, when placed in the middle of an uncomfortable situation, to keep her head and use a wellspring of maturity to navigate her way through.

Hanging out with her for this past year, taking her picture, sharing in some margaritas, helping her when she needed it, the Time Spent Together, that’s what’s informed me of these things.

More Laura Taylor can be found on her website: The Darling Life