Lately, I’ve been soaking in the quiet joy of spring, the gentle warmth of morning light, the way the sun lingers softly into the evening, and the color slowly unfurling where only bare branches once stood. There’s something deeply hopeful in it, watching blossoms awaken, tender and fragrant, unapologetically alive.

But spring, in all its vibrancy, is also a quiet teacher.

Because what we’re witnessing now — the color, the blossoms, the return of life didn’t appear overnight. These blooms we marvel at have spent the long, quiet winter hidden beneath the surface, germinating in stillness, gathering energy in the dark. Growth was unfolding even when it looked like nothing was happening. That’s the part we often overlook, that true transformation begins in the unseen, quiet spaces where no one is watching.

On my last visit to the UK, I was struck by the tradition of “blossom watches,” people gathering to witness the first flush of spring, pausing to admire the trees in bloom as if in gentle reverence. There was something so beautiful about that — a collective honoring of change, of emergence. A quiet acknowledgment of all that unseen work, the slow build beneath the surface, now revealed in full, glorious bloom.

And that truth echoes so deeply in the creative path.

When I first began taking photography seriously, I was impatient. I was so hungry to grow, to evolve, to arrive. I tried everything, touched every style, chased every spark. And for a while, I thought I had it figured out. But the more I practiced, the more I explored, the more I realized how much I still had to learn. Images I once felt proud of started to feel like stepping stones and made me think, “What was I thinking?” My confidence gave way to humility, and that humility became the soil where real growth began.

This is something I’ve come to understand deeply: that meaningful growth, the kind that lasts, is never instant. It’s slow. Gentle. Rooted in repetition, intention, and grace.

Just like the Earth in winter, we go through seasons where nothing visible seems to be happening. But those are not wasted months. They are essential for gathering our resources, our energy, and our strength. They’re the quiet times when we’re reflecting, integrating, becoming. And when spring finally arrives, when our work starts to bloom, it’s because we honored those unseen seasons, too.

As my runner mentor Lawrence Van Lingen says, “We must hurry slowly”.

Growth isn’t linear, and it’s never a race. It moves like the tide, in quiet plateaus and unexpected breakthroughs, in stretches of doubt and sparks of discovery. It doesn’t demand pressure; it asks for presence. It asks us to keep showing up — not just when things feel inspired and full of momentum, but especially when everything feels slow or uncertain.

In fact, it’s often in those stuck, foggy moments, when we’re unsure or questioning everything, that we’re standing on the edge of something new. A threshold. A quiet turning point. The start of a chapter we can’t quite see yet, but one that’s already unfolding just beneath the surface. Growth is rarely loud, but steady and consistent.

I don’t believe in quick fixes or cheat codes. I believe in consistency and discipline, especially when it’s hard or the path isn’t clear. In practicing not just the craft, but the patience. Because learning, whether it’s a new technique, an affirmation, or a new way of believing in yourself, takes time to root. And when we try to rush it, we miss that spring flush of becoming and blooming.

Everyone grows at their own pace. Some of us bloom early, some bloom late, some cycle through many springs and winters. There is no one set path, only the one we choose to let unfold before us by putting one foot in front of the other.

Photography, for many of us, will be a lifelong companion. Some seasons we’ll be in love with it, other times it may rest quietly on a shelf collecting dust. But what matters most is that it stays close, that we allow it to ebb and flow with us, to reflect the season we’re in, to grow alongside us.

And through it all, the peaks, the pauses, the pivots, it’s the quiet, enduring desire to learn and evolve that carries us forward. That’s what makes us human. The willingness to stay open, to keep growing, to remain a student of our craft and our lives.