To See Ourselves in the Frame of a Sunset
One evening, I was taking photos of the sunset on Induruwa Beach in Sri Lanka and saw this couple looking so happy.
We rarely get to see ourselves in the special moments of our own lives, so I wanted to capture it on film for them.
I went over after sundown and asked if they wanted me to send them these photos.
It made me think how beautiful we, and the frames of our life, look when we aren’t aware a camera is on;
when we’re not self-conscious about the angles we’re seen in, how we might appear, or what others think of us;
when we’re in love & we have nothing to prove
or we’re making a memory without the intention of trading it in later for digital validation;
how freely and gracefully and happily we move when we don’t feel the pressure of the world’s eyes on us, or the need to share an image of a moment in time in order for it to have been real; in order to have truly experienced.
Their names were Samantha and Eli.
It turned out that they were a newly-wed couple on their honeymoon, originally from my neighbouring city in India.
They invited me for dinner and drinks on our beach and we chatted all night.
They were so happy to have this snapshot of their lives captured on film and I think it’s because we rarely get to see ourselves when we’re not posing for the world’s eyes, when we’re feeling genuinely free and untethered by others’ opinions about our own worthiness or beauty or likeability.
We never watch ourselves moving through life in the moments that feel effortless, joyful, authentic.
So we can never fully visualise the true beauty of our own existence-the times we are just being and smiling and living for ourselves and not for anything or anyone else.
This is proof that we are all far more likeable, far more beautiful, far more loved, than we give ourselves credit for-the fact that we never see ourselves at our best-our most happy or excited or at peace.
And maybe if some stranger saw us from afar and showed us to ourselves as more than the manufactured image we critique and compare online, we would understand that we are more special than we believe ourselves to be.
Perhaps our presence in someone else’s life makes their world-even if for a moment-a little more worth it.
Maybe the sight of us-the same which we, in our mirrors, continually criticise-can, to someone else-a stranger, a loved one, a passer by-make the most beautiful sunset even more breath-taking.
Maybe we live in a world full of people who look at us and think more of us than we think of ourselves.
And maybe, in those moments, they will take a photograph and hand it to us and tell us so.
Or maybe they will just look at us, smile and continue walking by.
In both scenarios, we are just as magnificent.
Because we are part of this blip in time together, a piece of something bigger and each of us leaves a footprint-one which makes the ground we walk on, for the short time that we do, a better place to have stayed.
Happy New Year. To a year of loving ourselves more, validating all that we have been through, and trying our best to believe in the beauty of the part we each play in the rich mosaic of our magnificent world.
