I can hear you already, Dear Reader:
“Hang on—I thought this blog was about travel photography and orchestra tours in China?”
As John Cleese once said:
“And now for something completely different…”
Cue the Monty Python music—though this isn’t a cue for absurdity. No fish-slapping dances today.
This is about something more dangerous.
Love.
And Shakespeare.
Because—let’s face it—love, actually, is all around us (thank you, Hugh Grant).
We’ve sung it:
All you need is love.
Love lifts us up where we belong.
L is for the way you look at me…
We’ve worshipped it, doubted it, messed it up, and come crawling back to it. Love is a million things at once: cringeworthy, glorious, selfish, sacred.
But the question still nags:
Can love ever truly last?
Or does it begin to fade the moment it’s held too tightly—like a flower picked for its beauty, already wilting in your hand?
Framing Love Through a Different Lens
Lately, I’ve been experimenting with video—combining image, voice, rhythm, and mood. So I made a simple film of me reading Sonnet 18. Just that. No music. No flair. Just words and breath.
“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”
It’s one of Shakespeare’s most enduring sonnets—often quoted, rarely thought about beyond the first two lines. But I kept coming back to it. The idea that beauty, once seen, must fade. That time steals everything. And yet, art—poetry, photography—dares to say, maybe not.
A Thousand Words (and Then Some)
Somebody once said a picture is worth a thousand words. Even—dare I say it—words from the Bard himself.
And I think photography, at its best, tries to do what Shakespeare was doing: hold something fragile in the light. Give it form, give it space to breathe. Defy time.
“So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.”
Photography, like poetry, tries to preserve what’s already slipping through our fingers. The moment. The light. The love.
The Beauty of Fleeting Things
Now, I’m no literary scholar, but I’ve read enough sonnets to know that Sonnet 18 isn’t just flattery. It’s an argument against impermanence.
Yes, the beloved is “more lovely and more temperate.” Yes, “summer’s lease hath all too short a date.” But what makes the poem sing is Shakespeare’s refusal to let beauty fade quietly.
He doesn’t just admire. He memorialises.
And in doing so, he teaches us something profound:
It’s not the flower that lasts—it’s the memory of the flower.
In the North of England where I’m from, summer is short and unpredictable. Think Whitley Bay in May, where shirtless Geordies drink lager for temperature control, and the ice cream vans do brisk trade under grey skies.
We know the value of warmth because we only get so much of it.
Now, here in France, the summers are longer—but just as fleeting in their own way. The light is different. Softer. Still just as hard to hold on to.
Love Over Time
This brings me to the other lens I’m always looking through: my marriage. My wife and I met over three decades ago. We’re not the same people we were in our twenties—and thank God for that. Love has changed. Grown. Softened. Been tested. And held.
What I felt for her then wasn’t what I feel now—and yet it was the seed of it.
Love doesn’t stay still. That’s its curse—and its beauty.
The woman I love today isn’t the girl I fell for. She’s a mother, a partner, a woman of strength and kindness. My love for her has lines and weight now. It’s been through storms.
The Voyage and the Wind
There’s a line in the sonnet:
“By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d…”
Untrimmed sails. It’s a nautical image. Love as a voyage. And not always one with calm waters.
As a Catholic, I believe in the indissolubility of marriage. That it’s not just about romance, but about helping each other get to heaven. My in-laws divorced; my own parents didn’t. I’ve seen love crack. I’ve seen it heal.
Marriage isn’t a fairy tale—it’s work. But it’s also a grace. When it’s hard, I try to fix things rather than walk away. Not always perfectly, but with intention. And, frankly, with faith.
Love Through Generations
My son has just left home—for the second time—after his first real heartbreak. It was messy, as first loves often are. But he’s learning, like we all do. Hopefully he’ll come through it wiser, maybe even gentler.
My daughter’s still a child—full of confidence and conviction. She thinks she knows what love is. I just hope I can guide her without crushing her wonder.
Love, like light, bends. It shifts over time. And sometimes, we only recognise its shape in hindsight.
Art, Memory, and the Illusion of Permanence
A photograph feels eternal. But look again a few years later, and the people in it start to look like ghosts. Hair a bit darker, clothes out of style, expressions younger than we remember.
Art doesn’t stop time—it echoes it.
We take photos because we want to remember. Because we want someone—someday—to know we were here.
That’s the power of Shakespeare’s sonnet.
He didn’t name the beloved. We don’t know who it was written for. But we feel the love.
That’s the part that endures.
Conclusion: Remember Me
I think, deep down, we all want more than to be loved.
We want to be remembered.
That’s what a sonnet does. That’s what a photograph can do. They capture light—just for a moment—and give it a place to live.
Sure, the image will fade. The print will yellow. But the feeling? That can echo for generations.
It might not be eternal in years—but it can be eternal in resonance.
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see…
IJM Photography 