There are moments when the camera becomes something more than a tool — when it turns into a witness, a space where truth can unfold without needing to be explained. This session with Jae was one of those moments.
When we met for the first time, she shared that she was moving through grief and wanted to create something to honour this moment in her life, not a portrait of strength or recovery, but images of what it feels like to exist inside loss.
This touched me deeply. I can’t even remember if I told her how special it felt. As someone who has known grief since childhood, these kinds of sessions hold a deeper meaning for me. Grief shaped me. It broke me apart and rebuilt me
too. I wouldn’t change a thing. It’s made me wiser, softer, and more patient.
It’s made me love deeper, appreciate the simple things, and treasure moments
with those I love. It’s also drawn me closer to nature and to the quiet complexity of being human.
In creating this work together, I wanted to honour grief not as something to overcome but as something to live alongside. The images are not about resolution or transformation. They are about being with what remains. Grief
changes how we see things. It asks us to hold beauty and sadness side by side,
to let both co-exist without necessarily needing to make sense of it.
Our surroundings echoed that duality. Fragile yet resilient.
Still yet full of movement and life. Jae moved gently with the water and light,
as if carried by both. Her gestures spoke of release and renewal — reflections
of what healing can look like. Every frame holding the weight of absence, the softness of endurance, the quiet return to self.
Throughout the session, I kept returning to the idea of holding space — not directing, not fixing, simply allowing what needed to appear to do so. Jae is a performer, dancer, and producer, so she understands the language of movement. I didn’t need to guide her much; she embodied what was happening so beautifully. Sometimes that meant stillness. Sometimes it meant stepping back and letting the moment unfold on its own.
One of the things I really enjoyed was the trust and connection that carried us through. We had met before and already built a sense of ease between us, it felt like we’d been friends for a while, both able to communicate freely and honestly. Grief can be isolating, but when it’s met with openness, it becomes something shared. The lens offered both distance and closeness — a way to see and to be seen without words. It wasn’t about documenting pain, but about witnessing its texture, its rhythm, its beauty.
When I saw the images for the first time, I saw the weight that they carry, it
felt both familiar and sacred. The grain mirrored the rawness of emotion; the
imperfections became part of the truth. I could see that the photographs, in
its essence, were an act of remembering — not only what has been lost, but what
continues to live within us.
This session with Jae reminded me why I create. Film Photography,
for me, is not just about capturing moments but about holding them. The way
they unfold, fade, and return in new forms. It’s about tracing the invisible threads that connect us to each other and to ourselves.
Grief, I’ve learned, is not a single story. It shifts shape.
It asks for patience. It reminds us that love and loss are two sides of the
same truth. Through my art, I’ve found a way to honour that complexity — to
create space for what can’t always be spoken but can still be seen.
The images we created belong to both of us. They come from trust, care, and a shared willingness to show up as we were. They speak to the body’s way of remembering, the resilience that lives beneath the surface, and the beauty that lingers even in the softest, most fractured places.
In the end, this session wasn’t about making something beautiful, though beauty found its way in. It was about allowing grief to be seen — softly, honestly without needing to change it. It was about remembering that healing doesn’t always look like lightness. Sometimes it looks like standing still, breathing, existing, and knowing that even here, life continues.
