An Open Letter To The Camera
Rockledge Park - Grapevine, TX.
You’ve been with me this whole time.
Even when I went quiet.
Even when I stopped explaining what we were making or why.
I kept lifting you to my eye.
Kept noticing light the way you taught me to.
Kept framing moments that felt complete without needing to be shared.
There was a season where my attention was pulled somewhere else, not because I was burned out, and not because I had fallen out of love with you or the work. But because something curious asked to be followed. Something alive. Something that reminded me what it feels like to be a beginner again.
You watched me move through that.
You watched me learn new things about my body.
About presence.
About what it means to be witnessed without needing to perform perfectly.
I learned how much can happen when I slow down enough to listen, to myself, to the room, to the moment unfolding. And when I came back to you, I carried that listening with me.
You let me slow down.
Let me linger.
Let me pay attention to breath, to stillness, to the spaces in between.
You asked me to listen more closely. To my body, to the room, to the quiet pauses where something honest usually shows up.
Through you, I remembered that photography isn’t about capturing something. It’s about witnessing. About standing close enough to a moment to honor it without rushing it forward.
Coming back to you now feels steadier. Quieter. Less like reaching and more like listening.
I want to keep working this way.
Holding you without urgency.
Letting sessions unfold without pushing toward an outcome.
Trusting that what needs to be seen will show itself in its own time.
I want the people who step in front of you to feel unhurried. To feel allowed to exist without performance. To know that nothing about them needs fixing before I lift you to my eye.
So here we are again, still making photographs.
Not louder.
Just more present.
More space.
More breath.
More room for what’s already there.
And that is enough.
-Yesenia