WAITING FOR THE LIGHT
Jonny Royale
Before I picked up a camera again, seven years had passed. Life had moved on. Photography, once such a huge part of who I was, had slowly slipped away. The early mornings, the long drives, the excitement of watching a weather forecast all became distant memories. My camera gathered dust while the years quietly rolled by. Then, almost without planning it, I found myself returning to the places that had once inspired me. At first it was simply about being outdoors again. Walking coast paths, standing on hillsides and watching the weather roll across the landscape. But it didn’t take long for the old feeling to return. The anticipation. The patience. The hope that something special might happen. Photography has taught me that the best moments rarely arrive on demand. More often, they come to those willing to wait. Sometimes that means standing in the rain for hours. Sometimes it means returning to the same location again and again, knowing the image you’re looking for may never appear.
I But every now and then the light breaks through. A shaft of sunlight across a distant valley. A storm clearing over a mountain summit. A fleeting moment that lasts only seconds before disappearing forever. Since returning, that search for light has taken me from the Dorset coast to the Lake District, from the mountains of Snowdonia to the wildlife-rich landscapes of South Africa. Yet the feeling remains exactly the same as it was years ago: standing quietly behind a camera, waiting. Because for me, photography has never really been about places or equipment. It’s about those brief moments when light, landscape and timing come together. And after seven years away, I’m grateful to be chasing them once again.
This article first appeared in the PRISMA Newsletter, 26th of July 2026.