letters, love and life

Photographs the past month, more coming soon: 

1. flushed with happiness 

2. ambivalence 

3. kiss me

4. light in her eyes, love in their hearts 

5. rememeber the feeling of being in love 

6. awakening 

7. flow

6 & 7 taken while I was second shooting with whitewall photography

In about two and a bit year's time I will be twenty-one, and this is a letter for myself to re-read then. I encourage you to jot down a note or letter to yourself.  Refresh and invigorate your memory and reacall what it was like to be you years ago.


Dear Acacia

It is a 11:24pm and you are sitting on your bed, legs criss crossed, listing to the clock's pulse and waves of music flood your mind.  The lamp in the corner of the room is dimmed and warm.  You are 18, which most say is 'very young' yet they say 18 is naive and unexperienced and yet they say 18 is responsibility and adulthood.

This past year has been one of milestones and ventures you struggled to believe were happening - you've published in magazine distributed across America.  You have shot handfuls of weddings on your own and with other photographers and photographed countless families.  You started your business, made a wise and discerning decision to drop university and study online and build your business.

Life is rushed and flurried; sometimes you go to bed at 2am because you are lost in the wonder and joy, tangled in the passion for your work.  You wake up, sometimes having had 6 hours of sleep and continue to create, to edit, to seek work and clients day after day.  You invest in marketing, you talk endlessly about photography ventures and journeys to mum.

A year ago, when you were 17, you worried about your physical appearance and constantly thought about what others perceptions of you were.  Now you are merely concerned about your business, lost in a world of entrepreneurship and success.  What is success?  Success is not more weddings, a larger following, likes, or affirmation from others. Success is knowing God, understanding joy and hardship as equal and necessary entities.  Success is knowing that this life is but a whisper, a fleeting breath, a nanosecond compared to what is to come.  Know this.  Know that this life is not all there is.  There is more (so much more).  He has a plan - destined, mapped, meticulously designed.  Trust in Him, abide in Him, believe in Him.

 You were born into a family of artists, painters, musicians - your grandfather an exceptionally talented photographer.  Even though you never admit it (as far as I'm aware, you honestly never have), you are artistic and talented - a seeker and capturer of beauty and emotion.  Keep that in mind.


Above all: Let Him build in you so that you can build in others.  Close the laptop screen and refocus.  Comparison is the thief of joy and ultimately you have an audience of one - Jesus.   Know that this moment matters.

Shhh.  

Close your eyes and dream.  Picture life in two year's time from now.

Your eyes are tired now, drooping, you are about to take a shower and fall asleep with a sound mind.

Acacia, you are 18 and wise and strangely naive and passionate and eager.  You are going far and wide.  Listen, breathe, awaken.

xo