There’s something calming about studio work. Maybe it’s the rituals of setting up for the shoot — taking out the lights, plugging everything in, gathering the props, setting up the tripod. Unlike photojournalism, which is often frenetic, shooting in the studio requires precision. It forces you to slow down and be completely in the moment, which is somewhere I rarely am.

I love shooting in the early morning hours between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. I figure if I can’t sleep, I might as well be accomplishing something. The macro lens that I use is manual focus, which I hated initially, but I have come to love it for its ability to make me focus carefully, deliberately. When it goes well, I can sometimes walk away with three or four keepers, which I consider a pretty good night.

Last night was a good night.

I was restless and bored, miserable with yet another sinus infection. Nicholas had been asleep for hours and I found myself with too much time and too many thoughts crowding my head. And even though it was the last thing I felt like doing, I knew that shooting was the only thing that could unravel the tangled snarl. It was hot, and I broke my SB-28 almost immediately when the camera slipped from the tripod. The backdrop wouldn’t cooperate, and I couldn’t get the light right. In frustration, I sat down on the floor of my office, leaned my head back against the wall, and let my mind wander to another day, another time.

La vie doit continuer. Life must go on. Is quoque est vita.

Staring out into the darkness of yet another long night, I looked at the cherries on the table, waiting.

Post tenebras lux. 

I thought about the people who come to this site each day, expecting to see something new, hoping to see me happy, confident, living. Alive. Basic needs must be met. Shower. Dress. Eat. Sleep. But there is more to life than going through the motions. There is the whisper of firelight flickering in a loved one’s eyes. There are soft words murmured in the middle of the night. There are long walks in the rain and lazy afternoons curled up in bed with a good book. There is fine wine and good cheese and French bread slathered with Brie. There is friendship. There is love.

And there is a lifetime of happy memories. So many more than one person should ever be blessed to experience. Enough to sustain me so that even if I were never happy again I could look back and say, I was happy once. I was happy and I was loved and I was in love. What more could there be?

Music: Sunflowers by Everclear (lyrics)

Favorite Pic: “Colourful Highlands” by Yitweng at Hyperhex and “Charlie Brown”by Zac at Photoflavor.