Two People Who Know Which People Should Die

Tel Aviv in August is the kind of heat that makes you question your life choices before you’ve finished your first coffee. The city sits on the Mediterranean coast—founded in 1909 as a suburb of the ancient port of Jaffa, the two eventually merging into Tel Aviv-Jaffa in 1950—and in summer it simply cooks. The name translates loosely as "Hill of Spring," which reads as either optimistic or deeply sarcastic depending on when you arrive.

Russian-born photographer Michael Ivnitsky spent part of that August with model Shay Ri for a shoot with Sticks & Stones. They’d worked together before, kept running into each other at clubs and concerts around the city. We share a terrible sense of humor, Michael said. A year had passed since their last shoot. New tattoos had been acquired. Life had kept moving at its usual indifferent pace.

So they met at a friend’s apartment while August burned outside, got drunk, stayed close to the air conditioning, and put on Mac DeMarco. Then, according to Michael, they had a detailed and apparently satisfying conversation about which specific people the world would be better off without. I don’t know if the photos came before or after the list, but either way the energy is there in the results—something loose and easy and completely at home in itself. That’s either Tel Aviv in August, or just two people who like each other enough to say the honest things out loud.