The Dreamer

Photo Essay, Photography, Narrative, Fine Art Photography, Black and White Photography

She exists in the space between—where memory and longing intertwine like silk unraveling in slow motion. A ghost of elegance, her gaze is distant, lips barely parted as if whispering to the past. Her beauty is not fixed in time but floats within it, a dream half-formed, waiting to be remembered.

The dress she wears is a thing of mist and illusion, stitched from forgotten lullabies and moonlight’s quiet sigh. It is the kind of dress a dreamer wears—not in life, but in the space just beyond it, where lace breathes and tulle carries the scent of distant rain. It clings to her like a story still being written, draped in a softness that seems to shimmer with the echoes of another life.

Perhaps she was once flesh and laughter, her feet tapping against a ballroom floor, her laughter mingling with music spun from violins and longing. Or perhaps she has always been just this—an idea, a whisper, a moment of light captured before it fades.

She is not lost. Not entirely.

She lingers, weightless, between the living and the dreamed, where time is kind and reflections never blur. In this quiet place, she is both the mannequin and the maiden, the memory and the mirage. A story unfinished, waiting for the dreamer to awaken.

And when the dawn comes, will she disappear? Or will she step forward, out of the dream and into the world, no longer an echo, but real?

Somewhere, in the hush of morning light, she waits for the answer.

:: Rand

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All images are copyright Rand Leeb-du Toit, 2025