Nan Goldin's snapshots of innocence and childhood

my work has always come from empathy again love I can't photograph anyone that I think is ugly or disturbs me or out of anger I figure out out of love and out of wanting to touch someone in a way in some way so I only forgot people who touch me don't ask the same questions as everyone else I became really curious about why we don't remember anything before we're three or four and I got into a belief at the time I was making the book that children are from another planet and there's a story of a four-year-old going to a baby a story among my friends I don't know where it started but it's real and the four-year-old said to the baby do you remember God because I'm beginning to forget so I felt that babies come from somewhere else are there they're more they're closer to whatever it is but it is where we come from and where we go that they're a lot closer in those years and no more and then they're taught to forget the ambiguous sexuality of children and their androgyny it really interests me one of my god children she lived seven years as a boy she had a library card as a boy she went to school as a boy she completely changed her identity and then at about 14 she changed into a girl a woman I thought that the ideal world would be where you didn't know what gender people were till they took their clothes off I don't think I've met a single person who knows the gender of every child in here giving people who know my work really well and some of these kids are so beautiful they just break my heart they're Sofia most of them are either children of close friends children who I've known since they were born children that I've known all their lives this is one of my baby pictures I don't see adults very often in that completely unmitigated state of joy and it's such a pleasure for me none of the children dressed up is my direction never when people think it is when the little girl that from London starts dancing in the rain that was her idea completely I'm not as imaginative as the children are people are horrified by some of these images I don't know if they thought they were born dressed that Asteria has been coming and going for years years and years it's a witch on now and I hope that this book isn't misunderstood that way as I mean I just it's an homage to children it's the book is for them and about them I think the world is horrible but I've realized there's light in the darkness so and I I have I feel gentler and calmer most of the time I still take pictures I mean somebody asked me do you still take pictures every day and I said no but I actually do but there's no more seebik Rome you need a scan to make a foot of the print I don't know what a scan is I spent most of years of my life on a light table with a loupe looking at little slides and moving them around that was my medium it would be I guess if that you were an oil painter and was you had to paint acrylics but worse they fuck you up your mom and dad they may not mean to but they do they fill you with the faults they had and add some extra just for you but they were fucked up in their turn by fools and old-style hats and coats who half the time worse off Eastern and half at one another's throats man hands on misery to man it deepens like a coastal shelf get out as early as you can and don't have any kids yourself so that was supposed to be the end of the book now may you know it's a little bit harsh way to end it maybe but that's more my story you