Home

This post is dedicated to being home.

Home has always been difficult for me to define. Although I’ve lived in multiple countries around the world, I never have that one physical place I can return to and say “I’m home”. There isn’t one single place I can go back to, to see all the friends I grew up with. I do feel lucky to have family and friends everywhere I go, and I feel comfortable wherever I’m living, but sometimes I feel like it’s the sense of not belonging anywhere that truly defines who I am. So what is being home to me? Well it’s not something you can physically touch, or see, or hear, or smell. Home is that feeling I get when I’m surrounded by my family- the people I love most in the world. No matter where we are, as long as we are together, we are home.

The past 20 months have been extremely difficult for our family. The pandemic split us across the world and we haven’t been able to see each other due to all the ongoing restrictions in different countries. Our daily video chats just aren’t the same. It has been an emotional roller-coaster, but I am beyond excited to say that our family will finally be able to physically reunite in 14 days! This has been our dream ever since the pandemic started, and I still have to pinch myself to let myself know that it’s really happening. Although Lena and I have to spend two weeks in hotel quarantine, it is the tiniest price to pay for this moment.

The photos I am sharing is from just a week ago, shot in our apartment in Germany. Lena has been my number one model the day I picked up my first camera (which was probably at age 5). We didn’t have much to work with, but the simplicity of it all is what makes it special. I rarely ever shoot indoors and rarely ever shoot B&W, but again, I really wanted it to be as simple as possible, really focusing on that moment of calm we both felt. We were both very anxious about our upcoming journey and whether our family reunion would all work out, so having that moment of tranquility, knowing we could be with each other at that moment no matter what happens, was very soothing.