What carried me here
Over the past few months I've been thinking a great deal about what carried me here.
Not metaphorically.
Literally.
In a few weeks I'll have the first of two hip replacements.
It's a strange thing to feel relieved about an operation.
But relief is exactly what I feel.
For years I've slowly negotiated with my body. Not all at once. Quietly. Without really noticing.
For most of my life I never thought about my hips.
I thought about the next flight.
The next portrait.
Whether the light would still be there when I arrived.
I thought about overloading my car because I'd rather carry one more light than leave it behind. I travelled through airports across Africa with cases full of cameras and lighting equipment, usually without an assistant because I liked doing it myself.
I thought about lying flat on the studio floor to photograph a child, only to spring back up because another idea had arrived.
I thought about running through the cosmos fields of Delta Park with a long lens wide open because I could already see the photograph before I reached it.
I climbed the dunes of Sossusvlei before dawn because the light would only last a few minutes.
I stood only a few metres from a silverback gorilla and watched a mother feed her baby while holding the father's hand. Of everything I saw that day, it was their hands that stayed with me.
I thought about the work.
My body simply got on with its job.
For fifty-nine years it quietly said yes.
Yes, carry one more case.
Yes, climb that dune.
Yes, kneel beside that child.
Yes, get back up.
Yes, do it all again tomorrow.
I never stopped to thank it.
Only recently have I realised those yeses were never guaranteed.
The walk across the garden has become slower.
Getting up from the floor has become something I think about.
Some days the pain arrives before I do.
A few days ago I caught myself shouting at the dogs because they were under my feet. A moment later I apologised.
It wasn't really me.
It was the pain speaking.
One afternoon Bas helped me up the front steps.
I leaned into him more than I expected.
For a brief moment my little boy wasn't the one being carried anymore.
He was carrying me.
That moment has stayed with me.
Not because it made me feel old.
Because it reminded me what love quietly does.
I've thought about my mother a great deal too.
She walked this road decades before I did.
Her circumstances were harder than mine. Four children. Financial pressures. A country carrying burdens of its own.
I understand something about her now that I couldn't have understood then.
Not the operation.
The carrying.
There is another place that has quietly taught me the same lesson.
My garden.
I planted almost everything in it.
Tree by tree.
Shrub by shrub.
Over the years it became another room beyond my home. A place that welcomed people before they ever walked through my front door.
For the last few years I've watched it slowly grow beyond what I could physically keep up with.
Three hours became one.
One became ten minutes.
Now I often find myself standing there, smiling.
"Hang in there," I tell it.
"I'll be back."
"Do your magical thing while I'm gone."
I know it will surprise me.
We rarely thank the things that faithfully carry us.
Healthy bodies.
Good mothers.
Growing sons.
Faithful dogs.
Gardens that quietly wait for another season.
They simply get on with their work while we're busy getting on with ours.
Until one day they ask us to notice.
So that's what I'm trying to do.
To notice.
To be grateful.
To thank the body that gave me fifty-nine extraordinary years before asking for a little help in return.
Because when I look back, I don't think first about the pain.
I think about the airports.
The children.
The portraits.
The gorillas.
The dunes.
The ordinary Tuesdays.
I think about a life I was fortunate enough to live because, for fifty-nine years, my body quietly kept saying yes.
Perhaps that's the greatest gift of all.
Pain fades.
Gratitude remains.
And that, I think, is what carried me here.
JOHANNESBURG PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHER
One Moment. One Portrait. Forever
© 2005–2026 Bridget Corke Photography
Blairgowrie · Johannesburg · South Africa
International Master's in Portrait Photography
One of only two in Africa.