07/01/2023
*pause on the portrait posts*
My true love of photography came from an assignment in my black and white film class called "Elevating the Ordinary." Our task? To find beauty in ordinary, mundane things. Look from a different angle, shine a different light on it, play with your exposure.
Photography has changed me. When you set out with a camera, you set out in search of beauty. And when you set out in serach of beauty, you are bound to find it. I've learned that even the most desolate places hold within it glory and goodness if we only have eyes to see. My camera has given me those eyes to see.
I took this photo a long time ago during a roommate transition. This chair was all that was left in our living room. I would sit in this chair each morning and look out my window with my coffee.
I love this photo because to me it evokes longing, aching, waiting, watching - HOPE. And hope is nothing if not a wrestling match with what is and what could be. "Expectant Longing" is my favorite definition. Hope isn't always a shiny, bright picture. In fact, hope is an indication that something is not as it should be. If that weren't true, there would be no need for hope.
But we need hope like this room needs the light streaming through the windows. Without it, the ache of longing becomes unbearable. May we be the kind of people who sit in the places of loneliness and emptiness watching and waiting expectantly for something greater to come. And may we have grace to allow our hope to look exactly how it does.
I'll leave you with this poem by Cole Arthur Riley of :
the truth is my hope is mangled.
it limps and creaks
at night.
you speak of hope like a
white bird soaring.
it's okay that mine
is the battered exhale,
a bench with splintered wood