Light & Composition University | Master Photography

Amelia Cross

Amelia Cross has contributed to Light & Composition since 2015. Her Reflections meditate on what is no longer there — the absence with a shape, the gap left by something specific that once existed. Amelia's writing is never vague in its grief: she names what is gone, precisely, and finds in that precision a kind of staying power. Readers return to her pieces at particular times of year. They tend to know exactly why.

Photo of the Day

September 8, 2015

The Weight of Rain

There is a specific silence that follows a heavy rain, the kind that settles into the soil and demands that everything living hold its breath. I remember the garden my mother kept, specifically the way the tulips would bow their heads under the sudden, cold weight of a spring storm. They were not broken, but […]

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Photo of the Day

September 2, 2015

The Weight of Petals

There is a specific silence that follows a heavy rain, the kind that settles into the soil and holds its breath. I remember the garden behind my childhood home, specifically the way the tulips would bow their heads after a storm, their stems unable to carry the sudden, heavy burden of the water. It was […]

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Photo of the Day

September 2, 2015

The Vessel of What Remains

There was a wooden swing in my grandmother’s garden that held the weight of three generations before the rope finally frayed and gave way to the earth. For years, the frame remained, a skeleton of iron and rust, marking the exact coordinate where laughter used to hang in the air. We often mistake the object […]

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Photo of the Day

August 23, 2015

The Weight of Petals

There is a specific silence that follows the spring. It is not the silence of winter, which is heavy and expectant, but the silence of a bloom that has already reached its peak and begun the slow, quiet work of letting go. I remember the way my mother’s garden looked in those final days of […]

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Photo of the Day

August 17, 2015

The Weight of Unburdened Time

There is a specific silence that belongs only to the very young, before the world has finished carving its expectations into their skin. I remember the way my own childhood felt like a house with all the doors left open, a place where the wind moved through rooms that had not yet been filled with […]

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Photo of the Day

August 5, 2015

The Ghost of a Meal

There is a specific silence that follows a shared meal. It is the quiet of the empty plate, the cooling ceramic, the cooling air where the steam has finally surrendered its ghost. I remember the Sunday dinners of my childhood, the way the table felt heavy with the weight of people who are no longer […]

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Photo of the Day

August 5, 2015

The Weight of the Waiting

There is a specific silence that belongs to a boat pulled onto the sand. It is not the silence of peace, but the silence of a held breath. I remember the wooden rowboat my grandfather kept tethered to the dock; it smelled of damp cedar and old lake water, a vessel built for movement that […]

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Photo of the Day

July 23, 2015

The Glass Between Us

The blue wool sweater my father wore every Sunday is gone. It was not just a garment; it was a specific texture of safety, smelling faintly of pipe tobacco and the damp air of the garden. When he stopped wearing it, the world did not end, but the air in the hallway changed. It became […]

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Photo of the Day

July 8, 2015

The Weight of Waiting

There is a specific silence that belongs to a jewelry box left open on a vanity. It is the silence of something waiting to be claimed, or perhaps, the silence of something that has already served its purpose and now rests in a state of suspended animation. I remember my grandmother’s string of pearls, the […]

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Photo of the Day

June 29, 2015

The Weight of a Single Flame

There was a blue ceramic bowl on my mother’s kitchen counter that held nothing but dust for the last three years of her life. It was meant for fruit, for the heavy, bruised weight of peaches in August, but she stopped buying them. The bowl became a monument to the hunger she no longer felt. […]

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Photo of the Day

June 22, 2015

The Weight of Water

There is a specific silence that follows a heavy rain, the kind that settles into the marrow of a city after the frantic drumming against the tin roofs has finally ceased. I think of the way my father used to stand on the porch, watching the gutters overflow, his hands tucked deep into pockets that […]

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Photo of the Day

May 30, 2015

The Weight of Morning

There is a specific silence that belongs only to the hour before the world begins to speak. It is not the silence of peace, but the silence of waiting—the kind that lived in the hallway of my childhood home after the clocks were wound but before the house had started to breathe. It is the […]

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Reflections by Amelia Cross

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