Friday, March 29, 2013

He is risen indeed.


Still and quiet.
Taking the weekend off social media to reflect, to be present, and to be intentional and purposeful -- to embrace and enjoy life, without my phone in hand or laptop on the table.
Celebrating Easter with my family -- celebrating that He is risen!
(My God is not dead, He's surely alive!)
Happy early Easter to all of you. :)

love,
hannah

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

if a photo is worth 1000 words : story 4


She is quiet and breathes in.

in out in out in out

The rhythm is a pendulum in her brain, always the ticking pounding sound of beats cascading into melodies. One two three tendu is not so different than arabesque penchée five six seven eight. Sometimes, she sees the world in steps and terms. The skyscraper is en pointe, that tree is a brise, the movement in the park, simply the chords. It's only the sky that never fits her catalogue of terms. Perhaps, it is the music or perhaps it is the crowd or maybe it doesn't matter.

She shakes off the thought and slowly pulls pins from her bun, closing her eyes as her hair crinkles, sweaty and dry from the tight formation. It settles in a cloud of frizz and split ends around her shoulders and she pulls it back loosely into a pony tail, settling for something, anything, to keep it from her face. White chalk is her skin, blue eyes like the sky she can never settle on. Staring at her reflection in the dimly lit mirror in the near empty dressing room, she gets the impression that they are all china dolls.

Pink cheeks washed off from makeup and brought on by the stage, the group of dancers dwindle until it is only her sitting under the fluorescent lights, gently rubbing off the character she played that night. First go the eyelashes, gently tugged from her lids. The glue sticks and she places the false lashes back in their case carefully. Next, she wipes the color from her lips, and slowly massages the shades and black from her eyes. Finally, she washes her face, vigorously, until her cheeks are flushed from scrubbing and her skin taut, but there is no hint of the performance save the dull throbbing in her muscles. When the makeup is gone, she is almost unrecognizable and she wonders if her mother would remember the daughter she kissed the night she sent her off.

It is an honor, she said, squeezing her daughter tight and brushing her hair from her face.

It always is.

She picks up her bag, sweaty from discarded tights and heavy with half broken pointe shoes and makeup, and slings it over her thin shoulders. Summer is warm in the city but there is always a chill at night, a nip in the air that whispers of loneliness. The subway is almost empty and she stares out the window at the darkening city. It is never completely black, there is always the glow of a streetlight or the warm yellow candle of a window lit by friends.

So it is with life.

She checks the station and, yes, a moment of impulse, gets off. Central Park can be dangerous at night but she is drunk on youth and strong with being on her own and outside, the sun still chases the moon. There is a crowd of people walking through the park, a trail of voices dispersing into their own little lives and she slowly slips though the crowd, floating on the heavy air of summertime like only a dancer could. A little girl points at her bag and her mother hushes her.

She walks to the edge, walks out of the park, back into the swallowing green light of the Subway station, back into the quiet that makes up tired people hurrying home. A man snores next to her and across from her, a woman turns the pages of the book she is reading loudly, peering with furrowed brow at the wrinkled words. She smiles. If I had my pencils...But no. She has no pencils anymore. Only a cramped apartment and broken shanks from shoes made to break feet.

And that's how it is.

The light is waning, waxing, and the sun just beginning to fade into the blue light between night and day when she hurries out of the subway and into the air smelling like movement. Over there, the lopsided flag twirling in the brief gusts of wind, a fouette. The line of steps leading upwards, a développé. She hurries on.

The railing leads into the sea, or so it seems, and she leans against it, breathing in the salt that smells like home. It is near dusk and still, it feels like dawn, feels like the beginning of another day, because the city never sleeps and as a dancer, she is awake for all of it. She wakes with the hurried bustle in the morning, the roasted smell of nuts and coffee and the shouts of yellow cars. She wakes with the streams of light trailing in the ever moving streets, the flickering of restaurants and the shouts of conversation under a moonlight sky.

The water pulls against the stone and she drops her bag, sinks to the ground, pulls a broken pair of shoes from their ribbons. Mostly, the people ignore her. As she wants them to. She zips up her bag, carefully.

Not for pay.

The city falls asleep and the city wakes up and she lifts into an arabesque, eyes closed, breathing hard. There is stone underneath and a slate grey sky above and if she tries hard enough, the taste of rain in the air. A tremble in her ankle and she opens her eyes, sees a snap of a taxi door shut, and she plies into an entrechat. Another. Then a glissade, pas jeté, grande jate, again and again.

It's only after she unlaces her shoes and slips her bruised feet from their ribbons that she realizes she is crying. And even more than that, she falls asleep that night to the hum of her radiator and an open window and her last thought is,

I am happy.

what are you most excited about this summer : elijah


i. a small series on the faces I love most (my family).
documenting the different expressions from a simple question.
a culmination of little photo essays. number one, eli.
"what are you most excited about this summer?"
"woodland."

















Monday, March 25, 2013

sam + kelly // preview

Some days are better than others.
Some days call for tears and snorts of laughter all in the same span of seconds.
Some days mean you're surrounded by people you love.
Some days are filled with butterflies in your stomach.
Some days stay a celebration.
Some days are for wearing a white dress and promising to stay in love forever.

This was one of them.













Wednesday, March 20, 2013

it's okay to be messy.


I'm guilty of wearing masks.

Specifically, the lovely, I've got it all figured out.

It's easier to slap on a smile, put up a pretty photo, write a few words, and be done. Easy to blog a session or write about what is good, instead of what is hard. Easy to put on a face and skim the surface instead of being real and honest and raw. Easy to make it seem like my life is less than messy, more like a picture perfect magazine rather than being filled with grittiness and real things like staying up too late working and getting behind on deadlines and being insecure.

I want to be honest and real. I don't want to appear like I have it all together or because I'm doing so and so, I'm somehow "better" or "cooler" or "more professional." or I've somehow reached "that point" (whatever it is, it doesn't really exist), where I've got it all figured out. Because that is so far from the truth. :)

So. Here's the truth...

I still get nervous before every session.
I care too much what people think and struggle with my identity.
I fear I don't measure up.
I focus on my fears instead of resting in God's truth and promises.
I get stuck between pushing myself and being proud of myself.
I have trouble believing in myself.
I feel like I'm faking it and won't ever make it.
I struggle with punctuality and diligence every. single. day.

But there is grace in the midst of those real things. And I don't have it all together. Not by a long shot. But. I am learning. I am growing. I'm learning to let go of my perfectionism and to be confident in the gifts I've been given and use them to the best of my abilities...that doesn't mean I get a free pass to beat myself up if I "mess up" or don't meet my own expectations. There is a difference between pushing ourselves to be better and ignoring the strengths and gifts we do have, because we fear we don't measure up.

And I fear I don't measure up all the time. Because of my age. Because of where I'm at. Because I can't drive yet. Because I don't have ____ or _____(whatever it may be). Because I did or didn't receive this many comments (yes. even silly things like that). Because so-or-so is shooting these photos and I'm stuck in snowy Minnesota in gross March weather. Because I don't work out everyday or eat totally green and on and on.

But none of that matters. That's not where my identity lies. I can find joy and I can find who I am in the things of this world OR I can embrace who I am in Christ and this beautifully messy life I've been given.

Here's the deal. It's easy to reach a certain point and think that we've got it made. That as soon as we get to this many likes on Facebook, or buy this new lens, or get that many comments, or shoot this many sessions a year, or attend those conferences, or go to a photographer meet up, or get to that "point" -- whatever it is -- that we'll be good. That all our insecurities and fears will go away and somehow we will live in this overwhelming confidence. And those things are not necessarily bad -- in fact, they can be really good! But when we start basing our identity in where we're at instead of who we are in Christ, then we lose the heart behind what we do and who we truly are.

I struggle with my identity. I get nervous around other photographers, bloggers, and well, sometimes just people in general. I'm afraid that I don't measure up. I worry about whether people will like me and I put too much stock in what other people's opinions of me are, instead of being confident in who I am in Christ. And it's an everyday choice for me to focus not on what the world says, but what God says. That I don't have it all together and that's okay! I don't have to be perfect to be His.

It's okay to be messy.

"God speaks something meaningful into our lives and it fills us up and helps us change the world regardless of ourselves and our shortcomings. His name for us is His Beloved. He hopes that we will believe Him & start to see ourselves beloved instead of thinking up reasons we aren’t." — Bob Goff

Friday, March 15, 2013

today is the day.






I've been mulling over these words for weeks. Carefully, pulling them apart and putting them back together and seeing just how well (or poorly) they fit into my life. It's easy for me to put a mental bookmark on a quote or blog post and come back later to soak it in. It's easy for me to read a good word and skim through it with barely a passing thought.

But sometimes, there's a word that sticks and there's a thought that stays and this is one of them.

Today is the day.

I love all that it means and stands for. Today is the day to go for it. To do what you've been wanting to do or to take a leap and step out in faith. Today is the day to stop listening to fear and today is the day to try something new and today is the day to be fully present. I am Learning to live in the balance of the here and now. Appreciating today. Embracing the moments in front of me. Being present where I am. Being grateful for where I'm at. And in the same breath...

I am learning to wait. Learning to be patient. Learning to plant and sow and later, reap. Learning the balance of waiting and wishing away. Learning to let go. Learning to invest in people and their lives. Learning what it means to really love and live and be. And it's a beautiful and hard thing, but a good one.

Reconciling the poignancy and call to action of, Today is the Day, with the reality that there is still good to come.

I think it's important to live in both. And I think that neither of them are fully true by themselves, that we need each to even the other out. We can't always be living in today being the greatest and best, because the reality is that each day will be different. And there will be good days and bad days and days in between. Days scattered with joys like coffee dates and soul chats and wearing sandals for the first of spring. Simple things. And there will be days when you wake up too late, when you miss a call, miss a bus, miss a friend, when each minute feels a countdown until the next. But in the same breath, the reality is the popular phrase The Best is Yet to Come is not entirely true for this life on earth. If we keep wishing away our todays for tomorrows, we miss out on the beauty of here and now. But if we only live in this moment, we miss out on the wonder of dreaming for the future.

We need both.

Not to squander the precious and wild beauty of the moments we are in. Realizing that today is the day and we need to live in what we are given each moment. But also, to know that there is still good on the horizon. Onwards and upwards and inwards. The Holiday at the Sea. A balance of being grateful and present in each moment yet being ready and thankful for what is still to come. Praying for the faith and discernment to be present but also to be purposeful with what's next.

Today is the day to be present in this moment right here. The Best is Yet to Come for greater joys, deeper moments, richer minutes. Again. Onwards and upwards and inwards. Grateful for the good of now and waiting in patient expectancy of what is to come.

Have a rich and wonder filled weekend.
Much love.

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

///////////

"Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good." - Romans 8:28 MSG

gracie girl // portraits

“And then her heart changed, or at least she understood it;
and the winter passed, and the sun shone upon her.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King