The Change
Snead’s Asparagus Farm, Caroline County, May 2023
I find great comfort in these words from Deb Benefield. Deb is a dietician but her work extends far beyond the boundaries of eat this, not that.
Midlife means Change. Heck, menopause was actually called "The Change" when I was a kid. Most of what is familiar in your life, including your body, begins to shift under your feet. Most, if not all, of these changes, are outside your control.
Kids grow up.
Marriages may shift.
Friends and family members get sick and pass on.
Careers don't feel quite the same.
Your clothes no longer fit.
Your body doesn't work the way it once did.
Understandably, you want to white-knuckle around how you eat and exercise, grasping for something to hold steady through the storm.
The thing is, this time of transition is actually an opening! This time can be your chance to reclaim your desire, pleasure, comfort, power, and freedom.
I have been trying to white-knuckle this entire season of my life. Trying to maintain. To find fault and fix. To control, manage, and cope. All of this as a way to hold on. And I’ve seen not holding on or holding up as some kind of failure on my part.
Even in this space, I’ve tried to corral my pictures. Set them into projects. Force posts into formats and schedules.
All of this, rather than simply accepting and celebrating what is.
There is a clearing ahead, and it centers on gratitude. What a welcome relief!
A few notes on collaboration. There are a lot of variables in photography and as much as we may think of photography as a solo pursuit, the work really thrives with collaboration. That might be a conversation with a friend who gets it or even better gets you. It might be a long-term project with a fellow photographer building a body of work or creating a photo book. Or it might just be the relationship you cultivate with your photography lab. The photographs in this post were developed and scanned by theFINDlab, and I couldn’t be happier with the results. These folks are awesome. They were kind enough to provide feedback and it was really interesting to have the input and get out of my own head.
These were all extremely well shot and were a pleasure to edit! You captured the town so well and made all of us want to go there as well. We especially loved frames 1 and 11.
You did very well adapting in multiple lighting situations and making sure that you had enough light.
You shot very well for your preferences and you have some gorgeous shots here!
Keep up the great work! Thank you for choosing TheFINDLab!
This photo of the old crab apple tree with the bee boxes in the background, taken at Braehead Farm, was not a first-love of mine. But when the folks at the lab shared that they loved frame 11, I went back and took a second look. And fell in love with every last detail. Love grows.