my truth about warmth

yellow filters have somehow become a language of their own. they suggest ease, beauty, nostalgia, a kind of permanent golden hour. they smooth over difficult light. they soften reality. they promise a feeling before you’ve even entered the image. i understand why people love them. they’re comforting. they’re flattering. they’re familiar. but they are not the truth.

what happens next is rarely about the photograph itself. it’s about fear. about how an image will be received. about how it will sit alongside everything else online. the instinct to “warm it up” isn’t a critique of my work, it’s a desire to make it feel safer, more recognisable, more acceptable. in those moments, i feel tension: wanting my eye, my sensitivity, my way of seeing but still needing to place a hand over it. to soften it. to guide it. to decorate it. to someone else’s pallet and taste who isn’t me.

that’s where I draw a quiet line. light has many voices. morning can be cool and quiet. midday can be sharp, unforgiving, honest. the sea is often silver, not blue. stone holds grey, not gold. shade carries depth, not warmth. when i photograph a place, a home, a person, i’m listening to the light that exists. i want you to feel and communicate where i am. not where a preset suggests i should be. i want my images to hold temperature, season, mood, and time as they truly were.

adding false warmth erases specificity. it makes morocco look like portugal, portugal like japan, and every afternoon like the same afternoon. over time, everything begins to blur into the same soft yellow dream. beautiful, perhaps but interchangeable.

my truth about warmth. by sarah jessica marie burns

my work is not about decorating reality. it’s about witnessing it. that means sometimes the images feel quieter. sometimes cooler. but they last longer. they ask you to stay with them. they hold tension, atmosphere, and honesty. so this is an invitation and also a boundary. if you are drawn to real light, natural tones, and photographs that respect place and moment, then i’m grateful you’re here. i appreciate you deeply.

if you love heavy warmth, golden filters, and images that prioritise mood over truth, i respect that too but i’m not the photographer for you.

there is room for many ways of seeing. this is simply mine. i photograph what is there. nothing more. nothing less. i don’t like fake yellow in photos not because i dislike warmth but because i dislike false warmth, adding yellow flattens what i’m listening for it talks over air. over shadow. over stone. over salt. over time. yellow says look how nice this is. natural light says this is how it was. one performs. the other remembers. i don’t add warmth that wasn’t there. i work with the light I'm given not the one people expect. if the light was cool. i let it be cool. yellow isn’t how this place feels to me. i’m not rejecting warmth. i prefer honesty and atmosphere.

this is how i see

with love and colour,

sarah jessica marie burns xx