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Contributing Writer Storytelling & Travel Writing

Tom Bretherton

Tom Bretherton has spent the better part of two decades travelling, and the better part of that time paying attention. He has contributed to Light & Composition since 2014 with a writer's instinct for the particular — the name of a town, the timing of a conversation, the kind of detail that makes a story feel true. His Reflections are brief narratives that arrive at something universal by way of somewhere very specific.

621 Published Reflections

Reflections by Tom Bretherton

Showing 12 of 621 essays
The Rhythm of the Dust Photo of the Day
June 23, 2017

The Rhythm of the Dust

I remember sitting in a Land Rover outside of Arusha, watching a local guide named Elias trace a line in the dirt with his boot. He told me that the land doesn’t belong to the people, or the animals, but to the movement itself. We spend so much of our lives trying to stand still, […]
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The Weight of History Photo of the Day
June 19, 2017

The Weight of History

I remember sitting on a low stone wall in Siem Reap, watching a local guide named Sothea trace the carvings of a thousand-year-old dancer with his thumb. He told me that the stone remembers everything—the empires, the wars, and the quiet afternoons—but it doesn’t care who walks across it. We spend so much of our […]
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The Weight of the Wild Photo of the Day
June 17, 2017

The Weight of the Wild

I remember sitting in a Land Rover near the Sabi River, the engine cut, the air thick with the smell of dry grass and impending rain. Elias, our tracker, didn’t speak for an hour. He just pointed a calloused finger toward a patch of shade beneath a leadwood tree. We waited, not because we were […]
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The Silence of the Storm Photo of the Day
June 16, 2017

The Silence of the Storm

I remember a Tuesday in January when the city simply stopped breathing. I was standing on a corner in Brooklyn, watching the flakes grow so thick they erased the skyline, turning the familiar brick buildings into ghosts of themselves. A woman stood next to me, her scarf pulled tight over her nose, her eyes fixed […]
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The Weight of Seconds Photo of the Day
June 15, 2017

The Weight of Seconds

I remember sitting in a dusty repair shop in Marseille, watching an old man named Henri work on a watch that hadn’t ticked since the war. He didn’t speak much, just adjusted the tiny gears with hands that looked like gnarled oak roots. He told me that people think they own time, but really, they […]
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The Geometry of Letting Go Photo of the Day
June 8, 2017

The Geometry of Letting Go

I remember sitting on a porch in rural Nebraska with an old farmer named Elias. He was watching a patch of weeds go to seed in the late afternoon heat. He told me that most people see a nuisance, but he saw a promise. He said that to hold onto something too tightly is to […]
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Evidence of a Passing Photo of the Day
May 23, 2017

Evidence of a Passing

I remember walking through the woods behind my grandfather’s house in Shropshire after the first heavy frost of the year. The ground was a blank slate, silent and unforgiving. I spent an hour trying to track a fox, but the earth was too hard to hold a print. It made me realize how much of […]
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The Weight of Stone Photo of the Day
May 9, 2017

The Weight of Stone

I remember a stone staircase in a small village in the Peloponnese. It was narrow, uneven, and smelled of damp earth and centuries of dust. My knees ached by the time I reached the top, and my breath was ragged, but the view that opened up—a sprawling, silent expanse of olive groves meeting the sea—made […]
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The Quiet Before the Rush Photo of the Day
May 4, 2017

The Quiet Before the Rush

I remember sitting in a diner on 14th Street at five in the morning, watching the city try to wake up. The streets were still hollow, the kind of quiet that feels fragile, like a glass vase waiting for a nudge. A man in a neon vest was methodically lining up trash cans, his movements […]
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The Weight of Summer Photo of the Day
April 25, 2017

The Weight of Summer

I remember a Tuesday in July when the heat in the city was so thick you could almost lean against it. I had ducked into a small park near the station, looking for nothing more than a patch of shade. There were two boys there, no older than seven, trying to catch the spray from […]
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The Weight of a Morning Photo of the Day
April 19, 2017

The Weight of a Morning

I remember walking along the coast of Cornwall with my grandfather, back when I was ten. He had a habit of stopping every few hundred yards to look down at his own shadow, stretching long and thin across the wet sand as the sun climbed behind us. He told me that a shadow is the […]
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The Mirror of the Flood Photo of the Day
April 16, 2017

The Mirror of the Flood

I remember sitting by a creek in the Blue Mountains with an old geologist named Elias. He spent the afternoon tracing the jagged scars left on the riverbank by a winter storm. He told me that water is the most patient sculptor we have; it tears down the old to reveal the bones of the […]
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