I talk a lot about light here, about the many manifestations it can take in a life, about the form, the quality, about the distances I’ve ran seeking it, but more than anything I talk about chasing it. I talk about it so much I named a company after it, our wedding photography branch of things, Chasers of the Light (speaking of, we’re booking 2025 and beyond for weddings, elopements, and shoots all over the world, if you’re in need, please reach out, please, we’d love to come work with you!), and I’ve absolutely lost count how many poems I have written about the exact subject. Chase the light, I drone on and on and on, and hope that someone, somewhere, listens.
I realized today, and the realization was a slow creeping one, that all this talk about the chasing, I never stopped to think about the full ramifications of a life spent only chasing, and never catching. While I will say with full transparency, I think the whole point of the chase should not be aimed at said catching, it shouldn’t ever be the reason, the purpose of the seeking, I do believe it leaves something out from time to time, and I aim to remedy that.
Yes, we should always chase it, always seek it out like the hidden magic that it is, yes we should always be striving to uncover the many different embodiments it can assume, but, and this is a big triumphant but, sometimes, we gotta allow ourselves to absorb when we do catch little bits of it.
Sometimes, we must let it in.
What’s magic if it’s never acknowledged as such? What’s the point if we just never stop running out and over and beyond trying to get our hands on it? What’s the reason if we don’t ever slow, and truly let the light in?
If life is the pursuit of light, and that light can be whatever you wish it to be, whatever you need it to be—from actual light in photographs to the light in a loved one when they are truly happy and you can see it illuminate their face as though there’s a lantern inside and the windows of their eyes are shining like a beacon on a dark horizon—it doesn’t matter, then the only way we give ourselves the room to actually celebrate this life, is to accept the minor victories as they come. Accept, celebrate, revel, and then chase again.
I realized this as of late, as the last few years since the pandemic have been both exhausting and extremely terrifying for Sarah and I. From the loss of income over the 3 years the pandemic consumed, to the admittedly minuscule return of that income in the years since, to the miles and miles and miles we’ve flown and driven and shuttled in the attempt to get things back on track, we’ve been burned out and worn down and what used to be a joyful thing began to take on a feeling of immense weight. Yes, we’re always going to admit we’re beyond lucky and blessed to do what we do, to travel around the world and these United States doing that, but we’d also be lying if we didn’t say that after 15 years on the road, our old bones are weary.
On a trip to photograph a wedding on the border of Ireland and Northern Ireland this past June, we both felt that weight, and it was tangible. Doing any job for 15 years is tiring and commendable, doing a job for 15 years that requires you to get on multiple airplanes, sleep in multiple timezones, and then be at multiple wedding events, those of high pressure and high stress, ages you, and we felt it.
Standing on the shore of the sea, a rainbow bursting out of nowhere, we both looked at each other, and I think at the same time realized how much we needed to let the light back in. We took a breath, soaked in the salt scented surf, and sighed. Exhausted but elated, we sighed.
We’ve spent so many years chasing the light, literally, figuratively, that I think sometimes we lose sight of the fact that we do, in fact, catch it, and often. Dammit, this needs to be celebrated again.
I’m sure it’s a trait inherent, something we do as humans without ever bothering to understand why, this incessant hop from one thing to another. This culture has eroded into one of constant hustle, and we feel such pressure to always be moving on to the next thing, always adding another point onto our itineraries, another rung on the ladder we’re trying to climb, that we forget to actually slow and pay attention to the times things line up and, holy shit, actually work out. This is the light we can catch, these moments of absolute wonder and beauty and joy and often, comprehension, that not all things are as bad as they often seem.
It’s that comprehension I think is so overlooked and undervalued. We get into these mental doom-spirals that things are just on a downward trajectory, and it can be frightening and so difficult to stop. Having those epiphanies, those little lightning bolts of WOW, can be instrumental into stopping the slide, at least for a time.
This is a ramble today, one that is born more of my own mental desperation than anything else, and I’m so appreciative you are all here to not only listen, but hopefully comment and participate in a discussion about it. About letting that light in, about allowing ourselves the time and grace to soak it in when it comes, rather than spending our entire time merely chasing.
Chase the light friends, always chase it, but sometimes, just sometimes, when you really do catch a bit of it, stop, and let it in.
Let it in.
We can chase the light
but all the times we catch it
we must let it in.
Let The Light In | 9.1.24