I walked into the Sekrit Theater not knowing what to expect.
The day had brought rain in never-ending mists. The sky had clouded over, and some of my enthusiasm had clouded over with it. This was my first photography workshop and my first time shooting alongside so many other photographers. We had traveled to Austin hoping for golden light, but nature had written a different story.
Then I stepped through the doors of the greenhouse. It was coated in vines and moss, its weathered glass slowly being reclaimed by the forest. The checkerboard floor whispered softly of Alice in Wonderland, as though I had stumbled into a fairytale already in progress rather than a place waiting for one to begin.
I found myself running my fingers across the old brick walls, wondering how many people had stood in that same space before me, pausing for just a moment to absorb its quiet beauty. Then the model entered. My breath caught. Her gown was covered in embroidered flowers that seemed to have climbed directly from the vines surrounding us.
The tulle drifted behind her as she moved, and her red hair belonged so naturally in that weathered greenhouse that she felt less like someone visiting the space and more like someone who had always lived there.
She wasn't pretending to be part of the story. She already was.
I spent the first few moments simply watching. One of the things I loved most about the workshop was seeing how each photographer approached the very same scene through a different creative lens. Some noticed expressions I hadn't seen. Others were drawn to movement, composition, or light.
It reminded me that there isn't one right way to create something beautiful.
As I stood there, I found myself settling into my own rhythm.
Before I lift my camera, I like to understand a place. I like to see how someone naturally settles into it before I begin photographing. I wanted to know the greenhouse as much as I wanted to photograph the woman inside it. Eventually I found the place where I wanted to photograph her. It wasn't standing. It was lying on the cold checkerboard floor.
Most photographers avoid photographing upward because of the perspective it creates. I wanted exactly that perspective. I wanted her to feel regal, almost untouchable, as though I were looking up at a queen inside a forgotten cathedral of glass and vines. From the ground, I began to see things differently. The greenhouse stretched upward toward the rain-soaked sky. The vines framed her. The old windows became part of the story I wanted to tell.
But something was still missing.
The rain had left everything darker than we had hoped. The greenhouse chandeliers hung quietly overhead, beautiful but asleep. During a break between sets, curiosity pulled me in another direction. I noticed an extension cord disappearing around the side of the building and followed it through the rain until I found the switch.
One by one, the chandeliers came to life.
The greenhouse glowed.
When I returned, the atmosphere had completely changed. Warm light spilled across the old brick walls and through the misty windows, turning an already beautiful space into something almost dreamlike. Watching the greenhouse come alive felt like watching another chapter of the story unfold.
Looking back through these photographs now, that little moment has stayed with me far longer than I expected. Not because I found a light switch. Because it reminded me how often curiosity quietly leads me somewhere I hadn't planned to go.
Photography has never been about controlling every detail for me. It has always been about paying attention. Wondering what might happen if I looked a little longer, walked a little farther, or simply let a place reveal itself before asking anything of it. Sometimes that means lying on a cold floor to see the world from a different perspective.
Sometimes it means following an extension cord through the rain.
And sometimes it means discovering that the story you came to photograph wasn't the one waiting for you after all.
These photographs will always remind me that there is almost always another way to see a place if we slow down long enough to look.
Sometimes the light is already there.
It simply asks us to be curious enough to find it.
