I often forget the plot of a book or a movie just a few months after finishing it. At least the names, the details. What sticks with me isn’t the story—it’s the way it’s told. I get pulled in by the language, the rhythm, the way the writer builds a world through tiny, careful choices. A flicker of emotion on someone’s face, one perfect word in the right place—that kind of thing sticks with me way more than some big twist or surprise ending.
It’s the way an author uses silence and sound to create meaning. The texture of a sentence, the sharpness of an image, that little pause before a character speaks—those are the things that stay. I might forget names or what exactly happened, but I’ll always remember the line that made me stop breathing for a second or see something differently. Those moments don’t feel like memories—they feel like impressions, like pieces of a dream you carry around without even realizing it. That’s what great writing does. It doesn’t just tell you something—it shifts something inside you.
A photo, like a sentence, is a choice. What’s inside the frame is just as intentional as what’s left out. When I take a picture, I’m not trying to show how things are—I’m trying to ask something about them. The way light falls, the angle of a hand, the gap between two people—every part of the image says something. And sometimes, it’s the parts you don’t see that speak the loudest.
People like to say photography tells the truth. I think that’s a myth. The best photos lie a little. Or at least they keep things open. They make you stop and wonder. A turned face becomes a question. A blurry shape feels like a thought you almost had. A good image doesn’t explain itself—it invites you in and lets you wrestle with it. What you see depends on who you are and what you bring to it.
That’s what writing and photography have in common: they don’t tie things up. They open them. They don’t give answers—they leave space. And long after you’ve closed the book or walked away from the picture, they’re still with you, unfolding in your mind, unfinished. Still alive.
