The Beauty Inbetween
While I was creating my free online visual storytelling training, I stopped and thought about how the most beautiful of moments are the ones in between. And by that, I mean the ones we don’t expect. The moment of a glance while someone looks away while we take their photo, the one where they look up, the moment we think they aren’t looking. The moment of throwing all the freshly picked vegetables covered in dirt on the table to be washed. An artists painted, smudged hands as they clean up their materials. The moment between where it was and what will be revealed next. Some of my favorite images are those fleeting moments that I just snapped at my hip when I was walking past or catching a fleeting scene that changed in an instant. Beauty and magic exist in the in-between, imperfect, unposed, unstyled state. The moment can’t be replicated, and the final image is a little blurry. To me, that’s ok if it’s a little fuzzy. It captures the energy and the spirit in which it was taken. A moment in passing, a glance, a quick turn of the head to see the light hit a facade. Nowhere does it say only a good photograph is clear, crisp, and easy to comprehend. Seeing and shooting in a looser way opens you up to these subtle, shifting moments that you can’t quite put your finger on or genuinely replicate. The way the light hits the glass just so, only to dissolve into shadow in the next instant. It takes an attunement to your surroundings rather than being fully competent with your camera technically. Life is messy and fleeting, so rather than trying to style or make a scene just so, let it simply just be and let your subject reveal it self to you. Sit back and let it or them warm and all up to your lens, without rushing to capture anything.
I remember bringing my camera with me into the barn while my mom was doing the chores, and I took some photos of the horses in their stalls, which were striking photographs, but then it was when she wasn’t looking; she carried the buckets down the hallway. It wasn’t posed; she didn’t know I was taking her photo, and that was the magic part. It was the in-between moment, the fleeting instant, that embodied the essence of the entire moment. It’s hard to explain in words, and unfortunately, that SD card became corrupted, so I can’t share those images to show you what I mean! But it is the passing of an instant, the look, the gravity of the present that is bursting with spontaneous opportunity that isn’t styled or posed.
While I appreciate this is a difficult concept to grasp, next time you pick up your camera, look around and be attuned to what may happen next. Just when you think you’ve captured it, before putting your camera down, just wait and see how the scene unfolds next. Maybe, if you are shooting a person, just when you think you’ve captured their portrait, they look away, and the light hits them just so, and that’s the shot. I guess, to put it simply, it’s being open and tuned to the nuances and spontaneity of the moment. Not trying to control it but letting it unfold naturally because the unexpected moment can be ripe with beauty, too.
Alanna x
