The Lean
James Reade Venable was born in Manhattan, New York. He has been published in Black + White Photography, Dodho, F-Stop and many more. He is a 2x London Photo Festival Monthly Competition Winner and was on the Shortlist for the Storytelling category in this years 500px Global Photography Awards and was a finalist for the 2023 Monochromatic Awards by Dodo. He is also an actor and is currently Henry Dorris in the BBC series Hidden Assets. He lives for his wife and daughter. He lives in New York City at the moment.
On the Playground
Peggy Heitmann
I can still see myself as a kindergartner, five-year-old with blonde hair, gingham blue dress, running from the boys who chased me over the elementary school yard. I reached through the fence to pick the crimson roses that grew on the property of a family whose land butted up next to the school chain links. I picked two. One for my teacher, Ms. Shankels, and one for my mother. My mother didn’t care that the rose wilted before I could get it home for her to revive it in a glass of water. I can also see me on the swing. I swung so high that my teacher commanded me in what seemed to be a terrified voice,Peggy, Don’t swing so high.I distinctly remember thinking. I wonder if I said the words out loud to her. I doubt it. When I was a child, I did not say much. But I know I was thinking,I want to touch the sun. I want to scrape my feet on the sun’s surface.Back then I had no limitations. No fears that have since come to sit on my chest like a big lolling-tongued dog, slobbering all over me. Back then, I thought I could do anything. Back then, I thought I could touch the sun.