Magic and Miracles
By Sophie Smith
@sophiesmithphotography
Artist Note:
There is magic in the mundane, if you know where to look. Taking photos of my children helped me find it. When I have my camera in my hand, I notice the details: the way my daughter’s ringlets curl and bounce in the light, the way the water droplets catch the sun all around her in the harsh summer sun. We stop and see the insects and the snails.
Autumn light shifts and hits the walls a little earlier each day and my boy makes dragon shadows on the walls. Another winter meal-making becomes magical as late afternoon sunshine shines in and makes steam monsters. Dust becomes dancing fairies, steamed up windows on winter mornings are blank canvases and I take the time to enjoy it more through my camera.
Their simple play becomes my art, my way of processing this life.
Even cold grumpy mornings and bleeding teeth are seen with new eyes as beautiful, transformative moments. The seasons shift and I notice more: new teeth, new leaves, first flowers, longer legs. It’s not just the weather and the light changing—my babies change too—soft rolls and dimples transform before my eyes and suddenly my firstborn is all wild curls, sharp angles and a sharper tongue, jabbing at my soft spots and showing me where it hurts, where I need to heal to love her better, where I need to heal to love me better.
I met a wise woman recently and told her I am starting to believe in magic again. She smiled, but reminded me that magic and miracles are two different things. I must have looked confused, so she told me more.
Magic is the mirage, the illusion, the show, the wow factor—it’s the fleeting moments, shifting light, dancing dust. It’s the pretty photos, on display for the world to enjoy. Miracles, on the other hand, are the profound and deep shifts that happen without any pretense or show. Sometimes you might not even notice they are happening at all. They take faith in something bigger and better, whatever or whoever you choose to name it.
Miracles are the way I look back and see how far I’ve come, how deeply my children have changed me. It’s how I thought I was birthing them, but I was birthing myself, how I thought I was teaching them, but they have been teaching me all along. It’s how I thought I lost myself when I became your mother but realize now that I found and healed parts of me that I didn’t even know needed to be loved.
And that’s the miracle that has taken place amidst the little moments of mundane magic.
Photo essay by Sophie Smith.
Sophie trained as a photojournalist and practised documentary style photography for many years. When she had her children, she thought her photography journey was slowing down, however photographing her own children allowed her to access a new way of shooting—she began to create images that make the viewer feel the work deeply, rather than just see it. She now works as a full time photographer, documenting motherhood and families and the occasional wedding in South Africa. Connect with Sophie on her website.