Surrender Yourself

Letting go of control, one frame at a time.

Surrender doesn’t always look quiet. Sometimes it’s vibrant, alive, and full of others.

Ten years ago, I spent several months in India, taking a break from everything I thought I knew. After 18 years of working in architecture, ten of them in Canada, and a nomadic stretch between countries and questions, I had reached a turning point. I wasn’t quite sure where I was heading, but I knew I needed time—for reflection, for photography, and for myself.

During that sabbatical, I was spending time with a group of teachers and guides—and one of them, Amit, told me something that irritated me at the time. Surrender yourself, he said, after a conversation I don’t even fully remember. I didn’t thank him. I probably rolled my eyes. But something about those two words stayed with me. Back then, I couldn’t see it—but he had touched a nerve. And over the years, those words quietly shifted meaning. They stopped sounding like a defeat, and started feeling like a key.

I didn’t know it then, but that phrase would become central to how I approach photography—and life.

There’s a moment before crossing where you still want to hold on. And that’s okay.

Coming from architecture, I was trained to control. To plan. To make sense of things before they took shape. But photography has shown me that clarity often comes later. Sometimes, not at all. And that’s okay.

Letting go has meant staying out in the street when nothing is “working.”

Letting go has meant choosing a photo that feels imperfect but honest.

Letting go has meant editing a project with curiosity instead of certainty.

Some of the most meaningful things in my career—the projects, the publications, the invitations—were not part of my plan. I couldn’t have foreseen them. And in many ways, they’ve been more beautiful than anything I thought I wanted.

Even in the workshops I teach, I try to share not only what has worked, but also what hasn’t: the failures, the shifts, the unexpected turns. Because we’re often sold perfect stories, and I believe the imperfect ones are just as valuable.

Surrendering is not passive. It’s a way of showing up with trust.

In the work.

In the moment.

In ourselves.

I’m still learning how to do that.

Maybe we all are.

There is grace in the unfinished. In the uneven. In the everyday.

The photographs that accompany this piece were taken in India ten years ago, at the exact moment I decided to leave architecture and devote myself to photography. I no longer see myself in them the way I once did—but they remind me of who I was becoming. They are, in a way, part of my surrender.

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