W
hen I landed in Cornwall, 6,000 kilometres from home, I felt, as one might expect, out of place. My home and my friends and my lake were behind me, and naught but the towering mountain of University lied ahead.
For weeks, I resisted missing home. I tried to think about the life I had left behind as little as possible; I was afraid that it would be ungrateful to all the opportunities that landed me here, afraid that by missing home I would be admitting that I'd left everyone I knew behind. I was afraid of having turned my back on everyone that helped me get here; I wanted to be happy and free of regret in Cornwall, and missing home would mean that I had made the wrong choice, that I shouldn't have forced upon myself and my family and friends the rapid and binary change of moving abroad.
The wraith-like, blurred form of a gull careens across the cloudy dawn.
The pastels of sunset glow in the sand and eastern sky of this new land.
To distract myself, I took lots of photos.
I struggled at first. The plants and birds and rocks and things of rainy, tropic-adjacent Cornwall were nothing like what I was used to at home, and taking my normal wildlife and landscape photos proved a difficult task.
So, I turned to the only familiar in this alien world: the water.
A cormorant skims the sea just after sunrise.
I made hundreds and hundreds of abstracts. Some were similar to those I had shot back home, and some were completely different. I got up for the sunrise and stayed for the sunset. I experimented with harsh light and soft light and early light and midday light.
Many show the same water, the same headland, the same beach, with only subtle differences. One series shows the same water at three different focal lengths, each one increasing in detail. Another shows the same segment of horizon before and after the sunrise.
I took these two abstracts from the same place in the hour before sunset. The first looks south, to still-bright water, and the second looks east, towards the dimming horizon.
Because of these photos, I've been thinking a lot about change, about how subtle variations in light can paint an entirely different photograph, and how slight shifts in perspective can tell an entirely different story.
Take this pair of abstracts, above, photographed on the same bit of beach just 3 seconds apart. The first faces into the light, and is still lit by the bright southern sky, but the second faces away from the sun and into the already-darkening east. They are nearly identical photos, and yet they each tell their own stories.
In the first, the reflection of a billowing cloud waves and bends on the water, guiding the eye towards the horizon. The sky above is inviting, and the eye gladly follows the path of the cloud's reflection past the horizon and into the unknown beyond. This image is about arriving, about coming.
The second, however, juxtaposes the bright water in the foreground, reflecting the bright sky above, with the much dark top third of the water, hinting at the coming dusk. Unlike its counterpart, this image is about leaving. Although I photographed the pair from the same place, in the same 3 seconds, they are almost polar opposites, as different as the word "towards" is from "away".
Here, I show the same water and light at three different levels of detail.
As I've returned time and time again to the same coastline, I've seen that great expanse in all its colors. The sea highlights each day's subtle differences, accentuates slight changes in the wind; no two days are the same.
It's important to notice the depth of all the subtle changes which make a certain day's sea unique, but it's just as important to remember the breadth of its other days. A stormy sea contains not just the vitriol of that storm; that thrashing water is the same water that was flat and calm the day before.
Nature is a great equalizing force: the sky may be imposing and dark, the sea may be whipped with wind, but there will always be another clear, still morning, another fiery sunset. Storms don't forever darken the sea and sky. The sea is a wonderful beast not because of its silent calms or because it is tempestuous gales, but because of its dynamism and capacity for change.
These two photos show the same horizon a minute and a half apart: the first as the sun broke the horizon, and the second as the sun rose above the frame.
What I've realized is that change is additive: it can't erase the person I once was, only add to it. The many facets of me are not exclusive, and I don't lose one identity by gaining another.
I know now that happiness for the new and longing for the old are not exclusive. I can be simultaneously grateful for my presence here in Cornwall and wistful for home. And as trivial or obvious as this may seem, it's extremely freeing.
Before this realization, I had suppressed all my emotions towards my old life. I thought that if I ignored my connection to my home I would adapt to this new environment and become the next iteration of myself.
Now, I know that who I become here only adds to who I was. I'm not losing part of myself by leaving home; instead, I'm supplementing myself. Just because old me misses home every once and a while doesn't mean new me shouldn't be here. I'm incredibly grateful I've made it this far, and by refusing to miss home I would be refusing to acknowledge everyone that got me to where I am now.
This realization is incredibly liberating. Of course I miss home, and of course I look forward to seeing my family and friends. But that won't stop me from enjoying where I am and making the most of my wonderful new world.
The same headland, at sunrise and at sunset respectively, sits upon the horizon.