A Light Beheld: a name that came to me in parts, starting right back when I first created my photography business. I truly can’t remember how my first business name, Birth Beheld, came to me. All I knew was it was there, and it was perfect. But during my second postpartum, something began to shift. Guided by the Holy Spirit, I allowed myself to begin to grow into a new thing—a more grown-up version of Birth Beheld, perhaps. An expansion. Birth, maternity and newborn photography began to feel like parts of a whole, rather than the whole itself, and before I knew it, I was trying to find a name to encompass this beautiful new direction of family photography.
“Beheld” has always had my heart. To me, it holds a double meaning: the art of noticing beauty, and standing in awe of it; alongside the feeling of being held and honoured for the season you’re in.
Growing up, I was obsessed with Mumford and Sons’ album, Babel (and then refused to listen to them after they ditched the banjos). We still love to (gently) blast it on long drives, which my three year old thinks is great. Late in July, we were headed north, music playing, and Lover of the Light came on. “Tony, this is it!! Lover of the Light!! That’s my new name!!” It was perfect—I love finding the best light, photos literally are just light falling on a sensor and imprinting information, God is light, we see so much light in our little ones, it’s a bit poetic—“Eh, it’s a bit wordy and cliche.” Ah. Cool cool, crush my dreams with your honesty, it’s fine... (It actually was fine, I just had to have my moment.)
As we traveled back home to Palmerston North, I just couldn’t let go of the idea of light. It really was so perfect. I toyed with Light Beheld, but I didn’t love just swapping out an old word for a new one. It was so close, but it just wasn’t quite there. I googled “light beheld,” though, and found a poem—Monet’s Waterlilies, by Robert Hayden. It spoke of hope and solace found in the beauty of art, and a line grabbed me... “O light beheld as through refracting tears...”
O light beheld. It was so elegant, and truly the only things that stopped me choosing that, was the potential for it to be tricky to google, and that it did sound a little like a Christmas carol, although I did kinda love that, too. But it was poetic, gentle, light, beheld. I think it was my mum who asked, “What about A Light Beheld?”
I recently learned that every single one of our lives began with a flash of light. At the moment of conception, sparks of zinc explode from the egg, causing a burst of light to radiate out. Each of our beginnings were light, and I really feel that A Light Beheld was one of these beginnings.
A Light Beheld embodies everything I want my work to be—moments of true life and light, beheld and kept. It's documenting with a focus on the living that happens, the dancing flickers of affection passed from starry eyes to adored recipients.