Messy, Human, and Maybe Beautiful
Chasing clarity, missing often, showing up anyway. A few shots made it. Most didn’t. But maybe that’s not the point.
I'm curious—what do most people do when they’re unsure in life?
I’ve been doing photography for over seven years now and have accumulated a solid skill set when it comes to capturing macro shots, editing, publishing, and more. Yet, each time I go out with my camera, I’m unsure of what I’ll get.
Take these photos, for example. I spent almost 20–30 minutes trying to capture these flower stamens. After nearly 50 blurry, too-dark, or too-bright attempts, I ended up with just four that felt like I did a good enough job. Just four.
Fifty blurry attempts later, I walked away with maybe 3 or 4 shots that actually felt decent.
Messy
I can spend hours outside, taking pictures of everything that catches my eye. But when I get home and start looking at them on my computer, I never know what I’m going to find. It’s like a box of chocolates—you never know what you’ll get until you open it. And I think that’s just how life is sometimes. You can put in all the effort and hard work, but in the end, you never really know what’s going to happen.
How often do we share parts of ourselves that are still in progress? The versions that are unfinished, rough around the edges, quietly becoming?
How often are we honest about the in-between moments—the imperfect attempts that eventually shape the one we call “perfect”?
Ever stopped to wonder what role chaos plays in your life?
These are a few in-between shots from my catalog
Human
From what I’ve come to learn over the years, these in-between moments add a much-needed sense of uncertainty to our lives. In a world where we’re constantly entertained—by our gadgets, our social lives, our never-ending stories—these uncertain times, or as I like to call them, the “in-between moments,” serve as a reality check. A much-needed “fuck you” to the illusion of perfection we’ve built around life.
I think we, as humans, are always searching for closure. And when these in-between moments don’t give us that closure, they leave behind this air of loss. That feeling of, “Did I just waste my time for nothing?” or “What if I’m not good at this anymore?”
Uncertainty in photography can be daunting—not knowing what the fruits of your effort will be. It’s a challenge to keep going, again and again. And despite all the years of experience, I still have no clue what the outcome of my efforts might be.
In times like these, I often wonder—what do most people fall back on?
I personally believe that if you just show up and do your best, things eventually work out. It might not be the perfect outcome I hoped for—but all’s well that ends well.
P.S. It ended with this shot. 😄 Still a tiny bit blurry, but hey—imagine holding your breath, trying to focus on a flower stamen the size of an eyelash, with rain around the corner and strangers passing by, wondering what the hell is this guy doing crouched here for 30 minutes? Yep! this happened.
Ali Shah Lakhani
Maybe Beautiful?
For me, it’s just being honest. Fair and square honest. I voice my fears and emotions. I say them out loud and accept that maybe the situation is getting the best of me. That honesty helps release the grip of fear and lets me appreciate the challenge for what it is—a challenge.
Vulnerability, I believe, is offering our truest selves to others, no matter what.
It can be really scary to let others see the real us—especially when we’re having a crappy day—but doing so, despite the fear, allows us to live guilt-free in that moment. Some days we might not be pretty, but at least we’re real.
As much as we try to walk through life like we’ve got a chip on our shoulders, we can’t. We’re human—messy, imperfect, and real in all our flesh and bones.
Ali Shah Lakhani
But always real.
Nine times out of ten, honesty is how I grow through the moment. I’m okay being imperfect, but I’m not okay being unreal. You can see this in my work, too. I don’t believe all my photographs are “picture perfect,” so to speak. They’re just my best effort to share a feeling, an emotion, a moment.
I don’t really know how to end this. Maybe that’s the point. Like most of my photos, most of my thoughts sit somewhere in the middle. Not perfect, not finished, but real enough for now.
A song for you :)
Ali Shah Lakhani