MARY MATHIS

I wanted to start an area of my website in which i could show photos and maybe share some writing that I do daily. I always feel like archiving is so hard for me, so this may help a bit. I'll just share slowly.

A coloured light fades into another, gooey faces reflect blue, green, red, then a kind of silver. 

I’m out of place, the most accurate place for me. Camera hanging from my shoulder, Skyler next to me.

I kept thinking about how I would feel, if my once-high-rise jeans were struggling to stay on my hips, and my crop top folded up to the edge of my bra. So much of me exposed to everyone. So much of her exposed to everyone. 

I cringed back to my corner on the party bus, next to the mostly empty keystone light box that kept getting crushed by my heel. 

Skyler was looking at me like he knew I was trying to have a good time. My brain on the edge of something like opening the fire escape on the top of the bus and jumping.

When it comes to fight or flight, I fight and then I fly. I cant fight forever, though. Not if I’m losing it inside.

I cope through the blur of bodies by shutter snaps, until I have to pee. 

I get off the bus and go to the bathroom of a bar in my hometown. We’ve somehow made our way from Iowa City to Cedar Rapids. One step forward, and five steps back.

A woman is sitting on the water stained ledge near the sinks. She’s crying uncontrollably, blonde curls flailing. “Let me get you a ride home”

She told me she cant sleep in her bed. She hasn’t in months. She was raped in that bed. 

It felt like the end of a song in my mind, the end of a long dream. You wake up, you are pulled out of the trance, but you’re never really the same afterwards. Something shifted, and then nailed itself to the floor.

Who are you here with?

Yucky Men. 

I half-carry her out of the bathroom with the help of a manager. And although she begs me not to leave, I get back on the party bus. Nothing was more sweet than the release of the first steps away from her and the manager and the uber driver and the Yucky Men.

Everything was amplified by vibrating bass and the pulls of vodka. I was thinking about her, but I was thinking how this is a small town, my hometown. I wonder how many other women in this town feel like this. I wonder how many women are in pain right now, right this very second. Women everywhere, all over the world. I cant stop thinking about how much pain is going on at that exact second.

I walk in the party bus, and straight to the back. I look up at Skyler, and start to cry. He doesn’t understand and he couldn’t if he tried.

When I look at the pictures from the next day I feel sick. I still feel sick now. 

Women blurring around the bus, just like the lights. Some photos are happy, but most made me cry. 

“If it makes you laugh, if it makes you cry, if it rips your heart out, it’s a good photograph” a tattoo that’s written on my body practically stings. “You did your job” a friend says to me. 

What is it specifically that is my job as a photographer? I photographed the moment. I photographed it as I saw it. Is that my job? Should I be showing you what’s really going on?

Because usually I’m showing you something I made up. It was in my head, and now it’s in a photograph. 

These were in front of me, and now their in a photograph.

Madison Keys

Friday was my first assignment for the New York Times. Becky Leibovitz apparently told an editor that I was a good fit for this profile, and off I was to Illinois to shoot Madison for the day.

The most invigorating thing was introducing myself. I could hardly believe it. I said "Hi, I'm Mary Mathis, with the New York Times" and wanted to die inside. No one knew it was my first assignment with them, but I was definitely working harder than I ever had. Every caption was perfect, every photo edited twice over, and then a third. I turned in 24 photos. 

If they like the photos, I have a great chance at getting the internship for the summer I think. I'll do anything to get that. I love what I do and I want to keep challenging myself.