I didn’t plan on becoming the person who takes pictures in the middle of choir rehearsals. Honestly, if you told me a year ago that I’d be the one holding up a camera while everyone else held sheet music, I would’ve laughed and told you I could barely take a decent photo of my own shoes. But something changed the night I stayed after rehearsal cleaning up the leftover tea cups and folded programs. The building was almost empty, and the last of the stage lights were still glowing low and warm, bouncing off the music stands and the chairs we always forget to stack properly. Something about the way the light settled in the room made me stand still. It was quiet in a soft way, the kind of quiet that feels like a held breath. And I remember thinking: if I could save this exact feeling, this exact little moment, I would. So I took out my phone and snapped a picture. It came out terrible. Grainy, crooked, and somehow the main thing in the shot ended up being someone’s forgotten scarf draped over a folding chair. But even with the bad lighting and the crooked angle, the picture made me feel something. I went home and stared at it longer than any reasonable person should stare at a bad photo of a scarf. That was the moment something clicked in me. Not with skill, not with talent, but with curiosity. It felt like my eyes were trying to tell me, “Look again.”
The next week, I brought an old hand-me-down camera my cousin gave me years ago. I’d never used it for anything more important than taking pictures of my cat when she was being dramatic. When I walked into rehearsal carrying it, I felt like everyone was staring at me—even though they weren’t. Or maybe they were. Hard to tell in a small choir where everyone knows everyone’s brand of weird. I sat in my usual seat in the alto section, opened the music folder, and waited for the warm-up exercises. We sang scales, stretched our necks, shook out our hands, the usual stuff. And then, while the director was running through a tricky section with the tenors, a soft glow from the side lights hit the cello propped on its stand. The wood looked almost honey-colored. I lifted the camera and took a picture without thinking twice. When I looked at the tiny screen, I couldn’t believe it. It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t even particularly good. But it was better than the scarf photo. It had mood. It had warmth. It had a little bit of the moment in it. And that was enough to make my chest feel warm in a way I hadn’t felt in a long time. Something inside me whispered, “Keep going.”
After that, taking pictures became a quiet habit. Nothing loud, nothing showy. I wasn’t running around the room or standing on chairs. I just watched more closely. I watched how people leaned into the music when they forgot anyone was watching. I watched how the room changed color whenever the director dimmed or brightened the lights. I watched how our breaths came out in soft clouds on cold nights when the heating system wasn’t doing its job again. I started seeing things I’d never noticed in the four years I’d been part of this choir. The chipped paint on the third window. The tiny dent in the metal riser from when someone dropped a microphone last spring. The way the old piano reflected just a sliver of light off its closed lid even when the rest of the room was dark. Moments that felt invisible before were suddenly standing a little taller, asking to be looked at.
Of course, not everyone understood what I was doing. During one rehearsal, as I tried to quietly capture the bass section practicing a difficult harmony, my friend Clara whispered, “Are you taking pictures of my bad posture?” I nearly snorted. Another time, someone teased me by striking a dramatic pose mid-song like they were on a Broadway stage. But underneath the jokes, there was this unexpected thing happening: people started asking to see the photos. Not because they thought they’d look glamorous—trust me, sweat under stage lights is not flattering—but because they wanted to remember how the night felt. And I sort of loved that. I loved showing them a moment they didn’t know they were part of. I loved hearing someone say, “Wow, that was during rehearsal? It looks so peaceful.” Even though peaceful is not a word I would use to describe most rehearsals. Still, it meant something.
The first time I tried photographing a performance, though, everything fell apart. It was our winter concert, which is always chaotic in a warm, holiday-stress kind of way. People running around looking for scarves and candles and ties. Someone trying to tune the violin while someone else is loudly whispering an argument with their teenager on the phone. That night, I walked onto the stage holding my camera like it was made of wet soap. My hands were shaking, and the lighting kept changing from warm to bright to cool and back again. Performance lighting is like trying to photograph inside a strobe light while also attempting to solve a puzzle you’ve never seen before. During our first piece, I tried taking a picture, and my shutter made a tiny clicking noise—quiet, but not quiet enough. Three people turned around and looked at me like I’d thrown a shoe into the audience. After that, I only took a few more pictures—all of them blurry or blown out or crooked or all three at once. I went home a little embarrassed, feeling like maybe I should stick to rehearsals where the pressure was lower and no one cared if I messed up.
But the funny thing is, when I looked at those terrible performance photos later, I noticed something. They weren’t pretty. But they were alive. The blur felt like movement. The crooked angles felt like nerves. The bright lighting felt like the adrenaline of standing on stage waiting for the first note to leave your mouth. They weren’t photos I would show anyone, but they were pictures that captured the energy of that night better than a perfect shot ever could. And that made me realize something important: sometimes the truth of a moment isn’t neat. Sometimes it’s messy, shaky, too bright, too dark, too emotional. And those moments are worth saving too.
Over time, something gentle started happening inside me. I began to look at rehearsals differently—not as something to get through, or something squeezed between dinner and bedtime, but as something whole. Something worth remembering. I started taking longer, wandering shots after everyone left. The chairs all pushed back. The sheet music left on stands. The soft, leftover light still clinging to the stage like the last breath of a long day. Sometimes I’d sit on the floor and take pictures of tiny things, like the way someone’s pencil rolled under a riser or how the light fell in a triangle near the doorway. I didn’t post these pictures anywhere. They were just for me. A way of keeping track of the small life of our choir that existed off stage, in between the songs, in the spaces where the real heartbeats happened.
One night after a long rehearsal, when everyone left early because of an incoming storm, I stayed behind to pack up some cables. The room felt unusually quiet, like the air itself was listening. I turned off all but one of the side lights. The shadows stretched across the room in long, soft shapes. I took a picture of the empty music stands. Then I took another of the conductor’s score left open on the podium. And then one more of the exit sign glowing bright red over the dark room. When I looked at those pictures later, I realized they weren’t just photos of objects. They were little pieces of the life we build together as a choir. They were bits of all the laughing, whispering, arguing, harmonizing, breathing, and hoping we do in that space every week.
It wasn’t long after that when someone asked me if I had ever entered a photo into any kind of contest. I laughed so hard I nearly dropped my camera. Enter a contest? Me? The person who accidentally photographs the ceiling half the time? But later that night, sitting at home with a mug of lukewarm tea, I started browsing around out of curiosity. I found stories from people who had entered contests with pictures that weren’t perfect but meant something to them. I came across gentle pieces from folks who learned how to take better pictures not from big classes or expensive gear but from noticing small things. I stumbled onto this story and something in it made me stop scrolling. It reminded me that you don’t need to be the best. You don’t need flawless technique. You just need to care enough to look closely. And suddenly, entering a contest didn’t feel ridiculous anymore. It felt like maybe a way to honor the tiny moments I’d been learning to love.
I’m not a professional photographer. And honestly, I don’t want to be. I don’t want the pressure or the competition or the worry of trying to be impressive. I just want to keep noticing the small, beautiful things that happen in the middle of ordinary nights. The way a beam of light falls across someone’s sheet music. The way people stand a little taller when they sing the parts they love. The way shadows stretch across the floor when the room is almost empty, like they’re taking their time leaving.
When I step back from it all, when I look at the dozens of imperfect photos that live inside my camera, I see something bigger than mistakes and blurry shots. I see proof that I was there. Proof that I looked. Proof that I cared enough to pay attention. And maybe that’s all any of us really want—to keep small things from slipping away unnoticed.
The pictures I take might never win anything. They might never get printed or framed or liked by strangers. But they matter to me. They remind me of where I stand every Thursday night, surrounded by people trying their best to make something that feels good and human and honest. And when the lights dim and the last car pulls out of the parking lot, I still feel that tug inside me—the quiet one that says, “Look again.” And every time I listen, I find something worth keeping.
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