This photograph is part of Nan Goldin’s Cookie portfolio, which documents the artist’s familial-like friendship with Cookie Mueller, who died of AIDS in 1989. Goldin was among a generation of photographers who, instead of looking to the outside world for inspiration, focused on the deep personal and social bonds in their communities. Goldin described her process as “a way of touching somebody—it’s a caress. I’m looking with a warm eye, not a cold eye. I’m not analyzing what’s going on—I just get inspired to take a picture by the beauty and vulnerability of my friends.”