Jakub stanek

Photographer
Same love
Biography: Â
Public Story
Same love
Copyright stanek jakub documentary 2024
Updated Jan 2014
Topics Documentary, Gay, Gay Rights, Happiness, Photography

                                                   Same love

„same love“is an attempt to establish an intimate dialogue between the artist, showing the innermost face of the heroes, and the heroes themselves, who leave the doors ajar to their love stories. The document is showing homosexual couples forming families or marriage for over a dozen or tens of years. The protagonists of the project are men whose sense of life is other man. The aim of the project is to show true love that doesn’t always fit the social frames. 

  Ken & Lyn

London, 1968

 

This year’s winter takes its toll on everybody.

18 year-old Ken had just left a cosy nest of his family home. Shortly after he had been absorbed by the London freedom fever. 

Just like every night, on this frosty evening, he was in search of a house party. He found one, invited by a friend. He wasn’t expecting anything special from this evening. Ken wasn’t feeling well on that day. He had spent it preparing himself to a several-month long, solitary journey through Europe that was about to start the following morning. 

He wanted to say goodbye to his friends and  come back to his warm bed for the last time to rest before the journey of his life. 

Around midnight, when he was going to leave, he saw him. 

Tall, handsome, dark-haired, a little bit shy 22 year-old was standing by the door and greeting his friends. 

Why hadn’t he met him before? Where were they hiding him during the last months? 

One glimpse was enough. Nothing else was necessary. They knew. 

They spent this night together seduced by passion, youth, freedom. The world was at their feet. Nothing mattered, they were there, absorbed by mutual fascination. They weren’t thinking about the morning. They were there. Suspended in the space and time. In distant reality. 

Still, the time was passing by, without any exceptions, without heeding anything or anyone. They didn’t want to separate. The unavoidable morning came with the rising sun. Therefore came the moment of separation. They said goodbye. Ken shouldered his backpack and set off on a journey without looking back. 

A month without any trace of that daring boy was hard to stand for Lyn. He tried everything to find the mysterious stranger. He couldn’t believe that he was gone. One day he understood that it was supposed to be this way and abandoned further search. 

It was March, a beautiful wintry morning heralding the coming of spring. As every other morning, Lyn was drinking his favourite cappuccino while reading newspaper. He was in high spirits. That day was his first day at new workplace. Ready to conquer the London world of corporations, he was opening the door, ready to go. 

Touching the handle, he heard the first sounds of a ringing phone. He was going to leave without answering, but his intuition was prompting him that the great world can wait for him few moments more. 

He came back to kitchen. He picked up the phone. 

He heard that almost forgotten voice. Pure, still immature, but not squeaky anymore. He sat down. He couldn’t believe that this moment came. 

They spent that evening together. They dined in one of the best restaurants in London. Eating the whole Lyn’s rent for April didn’t matter. 

And again, nothing was important. Completely nothing. The whole world vanished. They have found each other and it was the only thing that mattered. 

After a few hour dinner, they were asked to leave. They were laughing so hard that they scared more than one restaurant’s client. This situation seemed to them a perfect crowning of that evening that they didn’t want to end it with a separation. 

So they went to Lyn. He lived in a beautiful, old apartment house. 

The flat was cosy, no longer student like, but not yet marked by a mature man experiences. Still hadn’t seen much, hadn’t lived much. Everything was still in front of it. 

This time, the night they spent together was full of romanticism, warmth, indescribable understanding. It was filled with the sense of community and unity. 

However, the night hasn’t finished the next morning. It lasts till now.

 

Sitges, 2013. 46 years later. 

 

Ken and Lyn – two men in love. 

As every year they spend July in Sitges – their second home. 

They are free, not shy to show their happiness. 

Men of mature age, proud of their life choices. Proud that they never had to walk alone. They could always count on company of one another. They are walking side by side for almost half a century now, going together through the best and the worst moments of their lives. 

They are not boys anymore, not almost mature adolescents, but flesh and blood men that can’t be surprised. Strong. With a backpack full of experiences. Humble. Happy. Fulfilled.

Recently married. 

Together they create harmony. They complement each other. 

Still handsome, stately, although grey-haired Ken and warm, hearty, lovely Lyn. 

68 year-old and 63 year-old, with still noticeable spark of boys that they used to be, on one frosty night ’68 on a party at their common friend’s. The first night of the rest of their lives. 


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