On grief, photography, and the strange sacred act of continuing.

Every October, the light changes in Upstate New York. It goes golden and low and slanted, the kind of light that feels like something ending. And every October, I feel it not just in the air, but in my body. A heaviness that settles in before I even have words for it.

This past October marked four years since I lost my first husband.

I don’t say that to center myself in my own business I say it because I think the people who are drawn to my work deserve to know who is holding the camera. And the truth is: she is someone who has known real loss. Someone who has had seasons where getting out of bed felt like an act of enormous will. Someone who has shown up to photograph the most joy-filled day of a couple’s life while quietly carrying something very heavy of her own.

The Days I Could, and the Days I Couldn’t

Grief doesn’t follow a schedule. Neither does the depression that can trail in its wake.

This past fall, I had both. There were days where I barely functioned , where survival looked like making tea, sitting with it, and not much else. There were other days where I moved through my work feeling hollow, present in body but somewhere distant in spirit. Going through the motions of a life I know I love, but couldn’t quite feel.

And then there were weddings. Days where I picked up my camera and something shifted.

I don’t want to romanticize it, I wasn’t magically healed by love in the air. It was more subtle than that. Being with couples on their wedding day reminded me, quietly, insistently, that love continues. That it finds new shapes. That the world keeps making room for it, even when yours has changed.

There’s something about witnessing two people choose each other , really choose each other, in front of everyone they love that does something to the part of you that has lost. Not fixes it. Not resolves it. But acknowledges it somehow. Like the universe saying: yes, this matters. All of it. The having and the losing and the continuing.

The Practice That Held Me

I’m a witch. I’ve been open about that, because it’s not separate from who I am as a photographer it’s woven into how I see, how I attune, how I show up.

When the grief got heaviest this fall, I returned to practice. Ritual. The slow, intentional work of tending to something candles, intention, the particular quality of attention that magic requires. It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t a cure. It was just a way of saying: I am still here. I am still tending.

That’s what I’ve come to understand about grief and creativity both: they ask the same thing of you. Presence. Willingness. A kind of radical showing up, even when especially when , you’d rather disappear.

What I Want You to Know

If you’re a photographer reading this who has ever hidden your hard seasons from your clients, your feed, your professional self: you’re not alone. The camera is not always a refuge. Sometimes it’s the last thing you want to pick up. And sometimes it’s the thing that quietly saves you.

If you’re a couple reading this, trying to understand who you’re inviting into your wedding day: she is someone who has loved deeply enough to grieve. Someone who knows what it means to have a day matter to hold a moment like it’s irreplaceable, because she’s learned that it is.

Your darkness doesn’t disqualify you from witnessing others’ light.

If anything, it might be exactly what qualifies you.

The October light is different now. Still golden, still low and slanted but I can sit with it more easily. I made it through another year. And I’m still here, still picking up the camera, still showing up to hold the moments that matter most.

That feels like enough.

Sarah is the photographer behind Hawthorn Photo, based in Upstate New York. She photographs weddings, elopements, and love in all its forms with film, digital, and her whole heart.