11/20/2024
Sometimes, sometimes a session is going along averagely fine. Good, even. And then, subtly, something loosens. A thread that had been pulled a little tight slackens and the mood shifts. All in the room become fully present without meaning to and the very air we are breathing feels blessed and sacred, christened by the light that has come dancing through the window. In a few seconds we’ve glanced around at each other, wondering if anyone else is feeling it too. This is when I start to overshoot, fearing that if I stop the moment will end. And you know, it does. It does end, I have to choose when to let it go. And then we go on to the next room, the next pose, but it’s all there. Right there on whatever little digital bits make up a memory card. A few days later, it will take my breath away again when I pull it into Lightroom for the first time. And I will thank the good Lord that this is what I get to do with my hands, my time, my right brained bent. Then I’ll push it out into the world on these miserable little impersonal squares and know that I was changed. And hope that they were changed - from what to what I don’t know. But maybe in fifty years when these images resurface, one of them will remember exactly what it’s like when the very air is christened by light that comes dancing through a window.
And let this be a warning: if you immerse yourself in as many beautiful, old books as I have lately, you will accidentally start to write like a silly old soul without being able to help it. 🙈
