Hope Comes In Glimpses

and sometimes color matters

Red leaves in ice, multiple exposure

Dear Reader,

The new year has only begun and yet it seems months since we celebrated Christmas. The weeks are flying and yet time moves slowly. Life is full of contradictions. Amidst tragedies, disruptions, and upheaval, we see kindness, care and love. Amidst despair, we still have hope. The complexity of life never ceases to amaze me.

I think that is why I enjoy layering images. I think that is why I love blur and imperfection in my images. I think that is why I enjoy experimenting and creating images that are not straightforward. I think that is why I love the art of multiple exposure. It’s complex. It leaves ambiguity. And despite the messiness, there is beauty.

This is the second set of images I took with the same technique I described in my previous letter: three in-camera exposures, one in-focus and two out-of-focus.

In my work, I generally lean towards classic black and white photography, but sometimes you just have to choose color; sometimes it’s the color that makes the image. When it comes to in-camera multiple exposure, shooting in color is great because the more exposures you layer on top of each other, the more intense the colors become. In these images, I did increase the contrast again to make the colors more vibrant, but not by much. A little goes a long way. I hope you enjoy looking at them as much as I enjoyed taking them.

Morning light on snowy path

Speaking of hope, speaking of messy, speaking of complexity, I recently read some very inspiring words about hope in the foreword of a book I am now reading for the second time titled “Culture Care” by Makoto Fujimara. The foreword was written by Mark Labberton, and I love what he had to say about hope. His words give me hope. His words make hope much more accessible:

In a world that is at once beautiful and pained, glorious and tortured, thriving and anguished, many ask: Is there hope? What does it look like? Where and what is it?

Hope, first of all, must be realistic. That is, hope can be hope only if it admits that which is darkest while urging toward the light. Nothing glib, or blind, or deflective toward the depth of despair could be a contender for hope. If hope has not first been silenced before the profundity of evil and loss, then such a two-dimensional offering is more scandalous than fruitful. Realistic is not so much concerned with practicality as it is about truthfulness.

Hope also often takes time to mature. On the whole, quick fixes are no match for protracted suffering. Instead, the story of hope is often a long one, with unexpected turns and twists, steps forward and often back too. Time can be both a threat and a friend to hope. Injustice, for example, has to be tediously dismantled, not exploded. This is often infuriating, but is it true. Hope is more like a treatment plan than an adjustment: in other words, hope takes time to shift toward healing.

Hope is disruptive, counter to dominant wind patterns, interrupting what is mapped - a crosscurrent pushing with creativity and truth in directions that many may think neither possible nor desirable. In this sense, when hope arrives, it appears as a longed-for surprise, arriving in some unexpected breeze or with some unanticipated visit.

Hope comes in glimpses, almost never in whole. Needs exist on many levels and in different dimensions, so real hope is unlikely to be present simultaneously for all the needs at hand. And though hope does have starts and critical corners it turns, it is hard to see hope clearly most of the time because no one has sufficient vision to apprehend it all - or even the most critical evidences of its approach. Hope and despair stand close by each other, and yet hope can still seem illusive.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this letter. It means a lot. Feel free to share this letter with anyone who you think might enjoy it, and I invite you to leave your thoughts in the comment section. Thank you!

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Items Of Note

Our next ‘Creative Hour’ is scheduled for Saturday, February 22, 11 am CST. This Zoom session for paid subscribers is a wonderful opportunity to connect with each other no matter where you live. I encourage everyone to bring work to share, new and old, or share future ideas for projects. This is a time to ask questions, exchange ideas, receive feedback and suggestions in a non-pressure and casual environment.