the girl who made it on her own

It means that you can now feel the sadness, but not let it consume you. Watch it, feel it, learn from it, create from it, but don't let it consume you.”

Hi tumblr, I miss you. So here are some photos and words I put together yesterday, some of which are memories that I once shared in this corner of the internet.

finding quiet in forests full of memories 

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At the end of December, I visited one of the forests I sometimes came to during the early days of my photography journey. In search for a place I once took photos at, I walked along forest roads covered in deciduous trees still carrying their autumn foliage, until I found myself standing in a place that felt very familiar. In the autumn of 2011, I spent a few hours here, making and creating memories. It was a golden autumn and I couldn’t grasp just how quickly it went by, and wrote into my diary the same day — ”Every leaf falling off breaks my heart a little more.“  To capture this feeling, I took a self portrait here, placing my camera on a high seat, looking down on me. 

Eleven years later, the high seat was deteriorated and its ladder was missing, so I wasn’t able to climb up there this time around. I climbed as high as I could (which wasn’t very high) and dove deep into this heartfelt moment, letting the memories of my early self portraits rush through me. I set up my camera, this time on a tripod on the ground, and put my feelings into a new self portrait in the same space. On this day in late December, I didn’t only find a place changed by the influence of the many seasons that had passed since, but also a little bit of myself.

found and kept

Naomi holding an autumn leaf we found on one of our walks