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Before you met Jonathan, you wouldn’t have believed how rewarding photographing would be. For all these years, you had thought it would be just snapping photos and be anxious about whether they’d look any good, and while yes, it was that too, it was so much more than just that.
Jonathan had borrowed one of his cameras to you first, but soon after that you had started saving up for your own camera. And now it was finally in your hands, just in time for the night of full moon.
“I can’t believe this is actually mine,” you muttered, grinning as your fingers stroked over the leather handle. “I saved for it for so long.”
Jonathan chuckled slightly. “I remember the feeling. Do you remember what I told you about night photography?”
You nodded. “Yeah, long shutter time.”
He brushed over one of the buttons behind the shutter. “And keep the f-number as big as possible, you’ll need all the light the moon has to offer if you want your first photographs to succeed.”
You snorted. “They’d better succeed, the film cost another fortune — well not as much as the camera, but it still stung me a bit.”
“Error teaches you,” Jonathan reassured you. “A lot of your first ones will fail.”
You rolled your eyes, but still with a small smile. “Aren’t you encouraging.”
He nudged you. “Well, better to be a realist, or you’ll get so discouraged you’ll never again touch that camera. I remember I almost quit when my very first photos weren’t masterpieces.”
“You sighed, before glancing at the moon. “Well, is this the hotspot you were foaming about or…”
“No, it’s a few minutes of walking over here,” Jonathan gestured forward and you followed, looking at the moon that peeked through the trees, creating spots of moonlight on the path. You saw an opportunity for a picture, but Jonathan had warned you not to be too eager — film was indeed expensive, and you could take only so much pictures with one roll.
“Here,” Jonathan finally said, smiling at you as he stepped out — and a beautiful field full of moonflowers spread in front of you.
“Oh, wow,” you gasped, looking at the sight. “This is beautiful.”
He smiled slightly at your starry-eyed expression. “We’ll practice night photography with flowers, and also portraits.”
“Can’t wait,” you replied, smiling widely.
Soon, you were crouching on the ground, your lens focused on the flower in front of you as you tried to find the perfect angle and fumbled with the settings of your camera as Jonathan instructed, before you finally gathered the courage to press the shutter. The camera clicked slightly, and Jonathan chuckled.
“I remember that feeling,” he told you, before readying his own camera. “How you’d wait forever to just press the shutter down and have the very first picture ever on the film. The next step is to watch it develop and get disappointed when it’s not perfect.”
“Well, we can’t know, maybe I’m a natural talent,” you laughed. “Maybe I’ll be better than you on first try.”
“We’ll see about that,” he laughed, before looking at you smiling, the moonlight hitting your face just right, and lifted his hand up. “Stay still.”
You frowned. “What?”
He sighed. “Look to the side slightly, and up. Neutral expression.”
You blinked, but did as he told anyway. He waited for a moment longer, before his camera clicked and he let out a breath. “Now, that will be exhibit-worthy.”
You snorted. “I’m not a model.”
“You could be,” he hummed. “My model.”
You felt like you blushed slightly, before looking at your camera. “I… I’ll continue taking pictures of flowers.”
He hummed again, smiling slightly before turning and continuing taking his own pictures of the field and the moon. But he still couldn’t help but sneak glances at you — he had never before realised how utterly ethereal you could look like in moonlight, and he felt himself fell just slightly harder than he already had.