Midwinter

Lucia celebration and a preview of my AM/PM photo project

Dear reader,

It’s cold. It’s dark. It’s winter. The most wonderful time of the year. :)

This letter brings you some photos and text from my upcoming AM/PM project, a photographic exploration of winter darkness in Sweden that will become available in 2025. The project is divided in three parts, and today’s images are about Lucia, a Swedish celebration held in the darkest time of the year to remember that light always prevails. And my favorite tradition here.

Natten var stor och stum.
Nu, hör, det svingar
i alla tysta rum,
sus som av vingar.

The night was great and silent.
Now, listen, it swings
in every quiet room,
hissing as wings.

Sankta Lucia – Natten går tunga fjät, traditional folk song to Lucia day, roughly translated by me)

“After moving to a different country, you lose some holidays and gain new ones. Christmas, New Year’s and Easter are pretty much the same in Brazil and Sweden, but I don’t think I will ever get the complete Swedish connection to Midsummer, for example. Sure, I learned the customs and significance behind it and I celebrate it in my own way, but I don’t expect to ever dance around a maypole wearing a crown of flowers. By not growing up with Midsummer, it simply doesn’t hold the same affective meaning to me as to Swedish people.

But Lucia is different. The tradition to remember that darkness will not last forever and light will come back has become part of me since my first winter in Sweden. It is one of my favorite days of the year. Watching Lucia processions throughout the years, I’ve felt both terribly lonely and completely embraced. The experience of hoping for light in the middle of the dark is a universal one, no matter how sunny the place you were born is.

Our very own this too shall pass.”

Photos were taken in December 2023, during Estradkören’s Christmas concert at Annedalskyrkan in Gothenburg. I highly recommend attending one of their concerts if you ever get the chance.

That’s it for the year’s final edition of The Ordinary. Thank you very much for reading. I’m still impressed by the fact that I have subscribers, and I appreciate each one of you.

I wish you happy holidays, filled with light and everything you hold dear. I’m getting ready for a trip that hopefully will result in many nice photos to share with you next year.