beautiful people, wrapped in love and the setting island sun. canon AE-1, thirty-five millimeter film.

 

You Are My Wild, "a weekly portrait project that brings together fourteen photographers to document how they see their children"

it is early and still cool. yellow sunlight has begun to stream through our slated glass windows and trenton slips out of bed as i sleepily pull my knees closer to my chest. moments later, he leans into my face and kisses my ear as he whispers, "i'm going now, i love you." surfboard under his arm, he disappears into the quietness of dawn and i bury a smile into my pillow.

an hour or two passes before the apartment is bright and i open the door to let new air in. the bed is made, the sink is empty and i settle into the couch with a cup of peppermint tea and my laptop, ankles crossed beneath me. “i’ve begun to feel at home,” the thought comes warmly to my mind. i bring my nose to the rim of my mug and breathe in.

'my love for film photography, for light and texture and raw storytelling, grew from a love for words. writing, the art of stringing good words together to create an image, taught me to see the world, to absorb rich details and feel the electricity of human experience. to write is to notice you are alive, to thank God for fingers and toes, for afternoon naps and love. to write is to allow yourself to feel thick emotion, to simultaneously experience and observe your own narrative. 

shooting film, likewise, has expanded my gratitude for living--for the way afternoon light floods my apartment, the texture of my bedspread, my husbands skin. film is honest, tactile, flawed. film is inconvenient, it requires patience. in a world where everything rushes, film is slow, a process of mechanics and human touch. i wind a roll of thirty-five millimeter film through my canon AE-1 and carefully focus the lens, releasing the shutter with my breath half held. days or weeks later, i find myself at the drugstore and develop twenty-four exposures of good moments, grand and ordinary. an incredible view of the sea, or peaches on my wooden cutting board.'

written originally at the request of good friend & fellow blogger mckenzie king. 

also, more thoughts on film by the good people at kinfolk magazine. 

sending all the love in my heart to lusaka, zambia today as my handsome father celebrates fifty-four years of rich living, of faith and service and incredible adventure, of work and growth and tender loving. thank you for giving me the most beautiful life, for filling me with hope and an eager thirst for goodness.