On the rocky shores of Vancouver Island, Canada, during a lull in a winter’s rain, you leaped from rock to rock on water’s edge – then, like Botticelli’s ‘Birth of Venus,’ you arrived at the shore of your own birth fully grown...in hiking boots.

Shortly after meeting Dagma in the late 90s, catching her tears and hearing of her history of being told she was less than...attractive, I became obsessed with pointing my camera in her direction; to show her the physical beauty I saw - in color or black & white, dressed or undressed in almost any location. Twenty-three years later my interest in unveiling all manner of her splendor, has not waned...but the purpose now is more selfish. I get a rush of pleasure from all of these discoveries.

Dagma has been very generous with my impulsive requests: for her to stand in a field of French sunflowers; take off her clothes to lay nude in a redwood forest or sand dunes; walk with a Mexican sun at her back dressed in a gown of flowers looking like a Gustav Klimt painting; lift her dress overlooking the city of Positano, stand in a rainstorm laughing, or sitting across from her splendor at breakfast

Not too many years ago I recall driving with her along the Columbia River Gorge in Oregon. We were passing a manicured forest of silver trees dressed bare for winter in snow. “Wow! Look at that.” I pulled off the next exit, turned back onto a dirt road that bordered the trees and stopped. “Dagma, I’d like to get a photo of you in the forest. Would you please take off your clothes and stand over there in the snow?”

“What? No way, it’s too cold. Ok, I will, but only if I can wear my coat and shoes.”

Up close or from a distance, in her youth and in our ‘golden’ years she remains my muse, my inspiration—and oftentimes the subject of my exploration.

I really have no filter or preference to what I find captivating or noteworthy in my observations of Dagma. Hmmm...thinking on it further, maybe there is since I recall having taken no photos of her in pain, grief, frustration, anger or fear. No photos of her feeling less than herself. No photos of a grimace or a moment of sarcasm on her face—more so because these are as rare as me waking up ill-mannered. (But yesterday, I did see a slight map of grimace forming after I said something. She saw me smiling and asked why. I said, “I’ve not noticed that expression on your face before.”)

I cherish the discovery of something/anything new about Dagma. This is an easy and ongoing experience because I offer her my full attention and she provides me access to her authenticity and vulnerability. This allows for the continuing adventure that is vital and invigorating to our partnership...our marriage.

Being that we are with one another almost twenty-four-seven, and do not have an abundance of daily separate adventures to bring home for sharing by working away from home, we are challenged to find these adventures around one another, with one another. In the course of our respective daily discoveries we take delight in the sharing.

I don’t take as many nude photos of Dagma as I used to, though she still remains available for such, because as she has matured beyond sixty alongside me, I’ve found additional themes for visual and poetic declaration of her physical occurrence and perfection.

Over the years her beauty has continued to naturally and gracefully unfold into a daily bloom. This continued ‘birth’ of her ‘Venus’ has little to do her physical features and everything to do with who she is and how she shows up—without any ‘makeup’ applied: courageous, compassionate, fun-loving, generous, self-confident, kind, resilient, mindful, intelligent, cheerful, curious, graceful and loyal.

I no longer have to validate to Dagma that she is physically beautiful to me, however, reminding her of this on occasion doesn’t go ignored.

A few days ago, as Dagma left her bathroom mirror looking disappointed, she said to me, “Gary, do I look like I’m getting older?” In reply, I wrote her this poem: