After the Storm
This shoot was a long time coming. It took me months of settling in to finally be brave enough to photograph something that wasn’t a concert. I don’t know why planning a shoot—even just for personal work—was such a hard thing for me, but the idea for this one has been pressing on me for about half a year now. I finally got fed up with myself. I knew that I needed to do it. Turns out, the timing worked out perfectly. If I hadn’t waited for so long, I might not have had the pleasure of having Brittany model for me with all her stunning, pure beauty, or the sheer dumb luck of finding the perfect dress in the perfect size at Buffalo Exchange two days before, or the good grace of Julia as a faithful assistant and flower stem cutter, or the big empty field at just the right time of day. The sun didn’t hit exactly as I wanted (darn you, pacific northwest), but this shoot turned out to be everything I needed.
It’s based on an old Mumford and Sons song called “After the Storm.” Here are a bit of the lyrics:
there will come a time, you’ll see, with no more tears
and love will not break your heart, but dismiss your fears
get over your hill and see what you find there
with grace in your heart and flowers in your hair
This song, this shoot, was about healing. It’s hard to feel broken, or like things will never get better. But there will come a time when things will be better. There will come a time when we stop crying multiple times a week, when we feel safe where we’re at, when anxieties slip away, when we know we are loved, when we feel grace filling up the cracks in our hearts enough to get us to the crest of the steep hill we’ve been climbing. I imagine that the view from there makes it all worth it. I’m holding out for it.
