Robin de Puy

Robin de Puy Photographer • Director • Girl on a motorbike • books: Down by the Water, RANDY, If This Is True.

AMERICANEpisode 18 - Venus in ChipotleZyana (25)I’ve just found Venus, the goddess of love, lust and fertility, in the m...
08/27/2026

AMERICAN
Episode 18 - Venus in Chipotle
Zyana (25)

I’ve just found Venus, the goddess of love, lust and fertility, in the middle of Utah, the Holy Land of the Mormons. She doesn’t rise from the froth of the sea; she appears coming out of Chipotle, with her red curly hair and porcelain skin. I manage to catch her just before she drives off in a sea-green Chevrolet Cobalt.

Later, I learn that her name is Zyana. She lives with her boyfriend, Ben, in an apartment in Midvale, Utah. I photograph her sitting in the shade of a large tree.

Ben is constantly near her, while also giving her all the space she needs. Occasionally his admiration for her escapes in the form of loving words.

Zyana’s childhood was not very Venus-like. With young parents and no financial security, her life was chaotic and unstable. No divine meals, but rice with weevils and ketchup as a snack, because there was nothing else. “During winter, I didn’t have a thick coat. The school wanted to donate one, but my parents declined the offer, because they didn’t want others to know. The shame around poverty was too much.” At 17, Zyana left home, determined to break free from the life she had been dealt.

The years that followed were not much better. Abusive relationships, health issues, moving house frequently, and severed - and then restored - family ties made life tumultuous. Then she met Ben.

“We want to do things differently. We are chain breakers,” says Zyana. “We already have a few single moms and teen moms in this generation of the family, but I have decided I won’t have a kid unless I feel absolutely sure I can give them a better life than I had.” Ben nods, following up with a kiss.

“I don’t know if I want to live here,” she says. “With that impending abortion ban, too.” I sympathize with her. Instead of experiencing the magic of one’s sexuality, it has almost been made into a curse. Because how, as a woman, can you live your life in a country where you’re no longer in control of your own fruit?

“Where would you like to live then?” I ask her. She thinks about it and then lands on a possibility: “Maybe by the water? On an island?”

 

08/20/2026

Randy at the little lake, Duckwater 💙

AMERICANEpisode 24 - Killer Cats: The SequelChris, Athens, TennesseeKiller cats. I’d never heard of them until 2015, whe...
08/18/2026

AMERICAN
Episode 24 - Killer Cats: The Sequel
Chris, Athens, Tennessee

Killer cats. I’d never heard of them until 2015, when I met Chris, a little kid with tall tales of killer cats. I photographed him imitating the claws of a cat, shrinking slightly with each camera flash. For Chris, killer cats were everywhere - hard to distinguish from normal house cats, but he never failed to point them out.

Like most young kids, Chris had a vivid imagination. While my stepdaughter fantasized about a cozy gym class with imaginary gym friends, Chris’ characters were evil and unsafe. Not surprising, considering that when Chris was only two, his father and pregnant stepmother were killed in an accident. His life changed in a split second. His mother couldn’t handle the childcare, so Chris ended up with his grandparents – living in a trailer surrounded by woods and many cats, where fantasies and constant threat of killer cats came alive.

I had a soft spot for Chris. Clinging to the possibility of returning, I reluctantly left him and his killer cats behind. 

In 2019, I visited him again. Chris had shed his chipped childhood teeth for braces and was half a meter taller. He looked well. “How are the killer cats?” I asked. They had evolved into even bigger cats with black eyes, sharp teeth and bloody smiles. “They’re really bad. Don’t get around them,” he warned. I followed him through the woods, looking for tracks. Even though the cats were scary, I also recognized Chris had fully surrendered to the fantasy and that talking about it calmed him. More to the point: he was the only one who knew how to deal with these wild, dangerous animals. As long as I listened to Chris, I was safe. 

Five years later, Chris is now 16, no longer lives at the trailer park, and it takes a lot of effort for me to find him. He now lives with his mother and stepfather. After I ask to see Chris for a bit, they agree. Arriving at their home in Athens, Tennessee, I see Chris from a distance. Apart from his height, he hasn’t changed one bit. “Shall we make a Killer Cats: The Sequel?” he asks me almost immediately. I smile and answer with a big YES! 

AMERICAN Episode 14 Emily (6), Twin Falls, IdahoDrowned in dark thoughts I wander through a big Walmart in Twin Falls, I...
08/13/2026

AMERICAN
Episode 14
Emily (6), Twin Falls, Idaho

Drowned in dark thoughts I wander through a big Walmart in Twin Falls, Idaho. It is the intense gaze of a young girl that brings me back to earth. In times of despair the look of a kid is as comforting as it is painful: the ultimate imagination of innocence, which only a child can show. Sitting in a shopping cart, being pushed by her big sister, the world is passing her by. I would love to photograph the girl. I nervously approach them, scared of being rejected.

“Is your mom here, too?” I ask. She’s in the restroom, the sister says, but she will be back soon. Meanwhile the bright blue eyes of the little girl are staring right through me. I try to keep the conversation going, without appearing to be a creepy stalker. When the mother joins us, the big sister has already found me on Instagram and wants to take a selfie with me. Mom is keeping an appropriate distance and I see her – understandable – concern. I give her my phone number and wait. Not much later I receive the message I was hoping for: “You can come over.”

The name of the girl is Emily. Her cognitive disability sometimes makes things harder, but because of the loving presence of her big sister Kenzie, 15, brother Lucas, 8, mom Ashley, 40, and dog, Piper, she can move through life in quite a carefree way. In contrast to a lot of struggling parents, her mom has, with the help of school and doctors, forged a way through the complex American bureaucracy with the result being a happy, healthy kid in school. “Without the help I could not have done it.”

Like a little kitten, Emily plays in the grass. She approaches me, getting closer and closer each time, then running away or hiding in her pink jacket. Everything about her is sweet. Her light, fine hair, the bread crumbs on her chin, the small hands which are holding a (still frozen) peanut butter and jelly sandwich, the nearly rolling tear that forms because of the wind, and the accompanying bo**er. An innocent child. Freely, she rolls through the grass and I roll with her. I want nothing more than to forget or not know – it works.

Hi, it’s summer. And therefore an ode to the body in all its shapes. Because I just LOVE the different bodies of others....
08/03/2026

Hi, it’s summer. And therefore an ode to the body in all its shapes. Because I just LOVE the different bodies of others.

My body often feels unsafe. It always has. Feeling calm in my own body is something I don’t really know and have never truly known.
Afraid of what I couldn’t place. Afraid of what I felt. Afraid of what I thought. Night horrors as a child with a body crushed by something abstract. A collision between something fluid, soft, and pink and something black, hard, and cold, resulting in unbridled fear and a cry for help that no one could give, because it was something that happened inside me.

The night horrors are gone (yay). But the sense of insecurity in my body remains. Not always, but often. Sometimes it feels tight, as if there’s no room to breathe.
Sometimes my muscles feel like a horse shaking off flies. Sometimes it feels heavy, as if it simply cannot go on.

BUT: By looking at other bodies, by seeing them move - confident and loved - I learn to understand, accept, and love my own body. 🫶🏽

07/27/2026

Two short films. Carol in the sun, on her blue bike in Lawton, Oklahoma.

View the full story in the previous post. ❤️

F**k. Tomorrow our trip will come to an end. Long story short: I don’t want to leave. Every time I have to say goodbye t...
07/23/2026

F**k. Tomorrow our trip will come to an end. Long story short: I don’t want to leave. Every time I have to say goodbye to Randy it devastates me.

The past few weeks brought new experiences for him every day. Taking photos of the arches in Utah, seeing fireflies in the forests of Hot Springs, North Carolina, to drinking a fancy cocktail with a salty foam bubble on top in a way-too-expensive bar (he accidentally coughed the foam bubble off and launched it onto the table) in Las Vegas. Curling up on a rock in a wild river to take a picture, standing barefoot in a flooded New York City and swimming in the ocean. And of course flying, hovering above the clouds.

Yesterday, when we were driving the last 20 miles and we were almost in Ely, Randy burst into tears. “Randy, what’s wrong?” I asked. “I just don’t want this to stop”, he answered. His tears were so real. “I wanted to hold back my tears, but I just couldn’t.” His blue eyes drilled right through me and I wanted nothing more than to say something that would comfort him. “But I’ll be back,” I forced out through my own tears. Words he once said to me on one of my first trips to see him, because with every damn goodbye I feel like my world stops. Words he still says to me to this day when I am sad about the fact that we live so far apart. Now he answered: “I think I say these words also to comfort myself.”

He is not just a boy to me. He is literally my little brother, my son from afar, my American buddy who loves to pick on me, my heart. I love him to death. And still: there are no words that cover it. So if you ever wonder why I have taken thousands of pictures of Randy over the past 11 years — this is the reason. The feeling is just way too big to carry on my own and I simply need you all to carry it with me, with us. ❤️

If This Is TrueDiary notes from week 1-11 May 2015 📖The first week has flown by. My trip began in Las Vegas, where a bea...
07/20/2026

If This Is True
Diary notes from week 1-11 May 2015 📖

The first week has flown by. My trip began in Las Vegas, where a beautiful Harley Davidson Heritage awaited me. Still gleaming, this bike will carry me around for the next ten weeks. No route has been planned in advance. All I knew for certain was that I wanted to go north from Las Vegas. So I rode about 100 miles and found a little motel in the middle of nowhere: the Alamo Inn.

The next day I left early - praise the jet lag - and continued my journey in the sun. Thinking it was about time to shoot my first portrait, I found Cecil, who couldn’t have been a better photo subject to start with. A sweet man, lonely too. He moved me.

After that I rode further north, Salt Lake City my aim. Yet because of heavy rainfall I had to spend the night in Pioche, a small town far south of Salt Lake City. In Pioche nothing ever happens - to quote a regular at the bar - so a photographer passing through on a motorcycle soon became the talk of the town. I felt very much at home there and even toyed with the idea of staying for two months to photograph all its residents. When morning came, though, I decided to make another attempt to get through the stormy weather. After about a half-hour of heavy rain, with lightning striking all around me, I decided it might be smarter to go back. There some people dried my clothes, and I was walking around the bar in my socks. As a consolation, they let me sleep in the ‘flower’ room.

The next day I really had to leave Pioche, since all the rooms were booked up. And that’s how, in an attempt to avoid the bad weather, I ended up heading eastward rather than northward the next morning. My illusion of a dry Nevada was long abandoned. In Utah it didn’t get much drier. Even in Colorado, little improvement. Sometimes I was riding through the snow.

07/16/2026

AMERICAN
Episode 12 - Big Little Cowboy
Alan (74), Green River, Utah

Not knowing why I ended up here in desolate Utah, I roam around a couple of motels to calm my nervous heart. As a child of hotel owners, the presence of a motel nearby works like a pacifier - comforting, and it mostly always brings me joy.

From the Motel-6 parking lot I see a man in the distance, digging through a laundry basket from the waist down - only his legs sticking out, toes barely touching the ground. I jump out of the car.

“Hi!”

The man climbs out of the laundry basket and to my surprise I see a cowboy-ish character. The corners of my mouth curl up. He is built small, with big honest eyes and a deep black moustache, wearing jeans with an oversized tucked-in blouse. On his leather belt shines a buckle with a horse’s head.

“I live in Chihuahua, Mexico. I am only here temporarily.” This last sentence I hear more frequently. Temporarily here often means years, if not forever. “My daughter lives here.”

While we speak, the little man picks up large piles of good-smelling sheets from the dryer. I suppress the urge to grab the pile from him and dive into it.

“Since I was nine years old I rode wild horses. I tamed them.” Alan’s eyes light up. “The horses always threw me off, but I was never afraid. It was my life.” As he got older, he ended up getting physical problems. He shows me a big scar on his chest. “My veins clogged up time after time. I escaped from dying.” After a couple of intense surgeries he had to give up the heavy workload of caring for the land and the horses. And now he is here with his daughter in Green River. Doing loads of laundry to get by.

“I am not sad or angry. I am always content.” I want to believe him. “I thank God on my knees that He hasn’t yet brought me to paradise.”

Later, when I try to call Alan, he appears to have gone missing. He didn’t even pick up his last pay cheque.

The big little cowboy has flown off.

AMERICAN Episode 22 - From Son Up to Son DownMicah (10), Muncie, Indiana“What do you want to be when you grow up?” I ask...
07/13/2026

AMERICAN
Episode 22 - From Son Up to Son Down
Micah (10), Muncie, Indiana

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” I ask Micah. “A fireman,” he replies softly. “Nooooo,” his mother says. “What do you always say you want to be?”

He thinks for a moment. “I want to be an engineer - so I can build my own superhero suit like Tony Stark.”

The day before, at the county fair, a boy with freckles and orange-reddish hair had caught my eye. “Yesterday I exhibited my cat here,” he told me. “His name is Garfield, and he’s a long-haired orange tabby. I don’t really see him as a pet or a cat, more as a friend. I like to watch TV with him or take him on walks.” Micah and the cat piqued my curiosity, so we arranged to meet at his home the next day.

The large house in which he lives, and the abundance of possessions and love, reveals to me now that he doesn’t want for anything. Micah was adopted immediately after he was born; the woman who carried him for nine months could not keep him, and chose Lori and her husband as adoptive parents. A gift for life.

As Micah sits on his beautifully made bed, surrounded by dozens of stuffed animals, he talks about his hobbies. “I like to play video games, collect coins, play baseball, play tennis sometimes, ride my bike, play with my cars and I like going to the fair with my parents,” he says - all the while solving a Rubik’s Cube, another hobby of his.

He tells me that only a small percentage of the world’s population has red hair. “Do you feel special?” He nods and smiles. “And even fewer have red hair and brown eyes … and are partially tongue-tied. And can solve a Rubik’s Cube.”

His mother laughs.

Only then do I notice the text on her T-shirt: FROM SON UP TO SON DOWN, BOY MOM.

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