The only kind of Porsche I’ll ever own (2018)

Lurking in corner of his mind were the shadows,

Haunting him for all the entirety that existed,

Within his troubled head an image of the gallows,

Wanting to drive them out yet thoughts persisted.

Drawn into this mess of total chaos and mystery,

Subdued almost always into senses of urgency,

Never had a single criminal offense in history,

Yet he felt himself engulfed in a state of dormancy.

This chaotic life not at all anymore worth living,

All the struggles, the efforts merely bane and insignificant,

Everyone saw what hadn't been done, no one saw the striving,

He poured into the work he did, life was never gonna be brilliant.

You say you like the new job. You say that even though you haven’t really started to do anything and you’re shadowing/learning right now, you’re enjoying the work.

You seem in good spirits. But there is something in you that I haven’t seen. There are light shadows under your eyes like you haven’t gotten enough sleep, not that I can ask you that because you’re my boss now, and our new relationship means some of our friendship has to cease. Your voice has changed a bit too; it’s taken on a serious tone. You aren’t as carefree as you were before, when you sat at the desk behind me.

You aren’t as approachable either; I now need a reason to go to your office door, more than just turning around in my chair and asking you to tell me a story about your life. And I miss that. I miss your voice, I miss your eyes, and I miss your smile. I miss throwing things at you and reprimanding you for going out to smoke. I miss teasing you about your desire to always be right and your habit for googling stupid things. I miss your presence and how it brought light into my day and made me feel happy and safe and not alone. I miss feeling like a part of your daily life; being in the light with you versus sitting as an outlier in the shadows of the office - in our nearly empty cubicle quad with your empty desk taunting me.

Realistic spiral on flat white background

Photography tends to talk about two different kinds of shadows: hard shadows or not shadows. Traditionally, shadows in portraiture was frowned upon because they didn’t make people look flattering. But that changed with fashion photography and embracing the feeling in an image more than the technical know-how. But what we don’t talk about enough is the idea of soft shadows. More specifically, we…