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The journal looks one way. The house, on most days, looks another.
This essay is about the latter.
If you scroll the journal, you’ll find a coastal powder room with cyclamen on the brass faucet, a Sunday table set with linen and a vase of peonies, a front door painted in a custom blue-green. All true. All photographed at the hour when the room had earned its closeup. What you haven’t seen, because I haven’t photographed it: golden retrievers chewing the sticks they’ve dragged in from the yard, a basket knocked sideways, the rug strewn with fluff from a stuffed animal someone disemboweled this afternoon. The room that holds the photographs also holds these. Most of the time, both are true.
The discipline of a home is in what it does not show.
What I’m Not Photographing
The unfinished room. The corner that has not earned its place. The chair that does not photograph well from a given vantage point. The vase from the wrong era and the pillow with the wrong fill or the blanket that has lost its plushness. The room with the harsh midday light and the camera angle that flatters nothing.
The chaotic images from the day a shoot fell apart — three light stands knocked over, two pillows on the floor, a dog asleep in the middle of a styled vignette. The half-done DIY. The painted wall that needs another coat. The sample tile waiting for a decision. The bin that holds what has not yet been put away.
And the things that are not any of the camera’s business. The family table when the family is at it. The conversations that belong in private. That one morning the dog refused to move and we gave up and laughed and laughed. The Sunday no one wanted to share. The days the doors stayed closed.
Why It’s Left Out
The reason something is left out of the journal is not always that it is unflattering. Sometimes the subject is fine. Sometimes it is the most interesting part of the room. Sometimes it is left out because it is not yet resolved, and a photograph taken mid-thought does the room no favors.
A home is always changing. Some parts are settled. Others are still being decided. The photographs that earn a place here are the ones that are honest about what they are — whether that’s a complete thought or a work in progress, a small ritual or an elaborate endeavor.
The frames that don’t make it are the ones still unresolved — elements fighting, too much of one and not enough another. The discipline of restraint is not the discipline of perfection. It is the art of it, the art of waiting until the room feels the right way.
A photograph taken too early shows the tension, not the solution.
What the Restraint Returns
The unhurried approach is, in a way, generous. Waiting for the work to resolve before pointing the lens results in an image that sends a different message than one that comes from rushing. Still, you can see when a room is ready — and ready does not always mean finished. Sometimes ready means honestly in progress.
A half-painted wall photographed well is a reflection of the work. A half-painted wall photographed in haste with unflattering lighting is a different thing altogether. The discipline is not only the completion. The discipline is whether the photograph is true to what the room is at the moment the camera lifts. A renovation can be shared half way through. A first phase can be shared as a process. The work is identifying what the photograph is, and letting it be.
It is also a kind of generosity to the reader. A journal that has clearly chosen what to share and not to share, is vastly more trustworthy than one that shares everything, or one that looks only flawless. Trust is built by integrity and intention, not by volume.
The same discipline applies in anyone’s home. Not every shelf needs to be photographed. Not every space needs to be faultless. There is a moment, in any small project, when something is ready to be seen by other people. Sometimes that moment is when the work is finished. Sometimes it is mid-stroke. The job is to know which is which, and to remain sincere.
Some days the right photograph is no photograph.
The home is for the living, after all.
What is left out is also a choice. Often it is the best one.
