I don’t know how I feel being back on campus as an alum. It’s surreal. I’m here, but for once, there’s not anywhere I need to be, not anything I need to do. There’s no stress. The foliage hold their lush summer green. Autumn sneaks in a breeze. A few students mill around. Less than I would expect, but perhaps everyone is inside sick or studying (it’s that season again).
I could lie in a hammock on Senior Row, head tilted to the sky, eyes fuzzy, and wonder about my existence. Who am I now that I’m no longer a student? Has anything changed? How should I feel? Should I have done more since graduation? Shouldn’t I be well on my way? I could wonder my head off, further than I could see.
But through my camera, I need only see the world in front of me, a rectangle at a time, everything else falling away. In that rectangle, I don’t just see, but I look. I look for life, I look for beauty, I look for the story. I look for more than what’s there, and the world becomes greater than the sum of its parts. So much to see in one little rectangle.
I don’t need to wonder about the What Ifs or the Shoulds or the Whys. I can simply marvel at the Here. So here I am, back on campus, shooting a senior photoshoot (though I will always see them as juniors), marveling that someone would trust in me to share their beautiful moment.
PS: azalia’s senior photos, nyasa’s senior photos, more photoshoots