secrecy is a form of care

i do believe some places feel beautiful because they aren’t constantly seen. when a place is fed into social media, it slowly stops being a place and starts becoming an image. people arrive already knowing what it’s supposed to look like, how they’re supposed to stand, what moment they’re supposed to capture. the experience becomes performative, and the actual presence of the place gets lost beneath expectations.

i think there is value in keeping certain things untouched by the internet. not everything needs to be shared, tagged, or made searchable. a hidden trail, a quiet lookout, a small café known only through conversation carries a different kind of meaning. these places hold intimacy. they reward curiosity instead of visibility, and they ask people to be present rather than productive.

secrecy, to me, isn’t about exclusion or gatekeeping. it’s about respect and love and life. some places can’t survive being broadcast. attention changes behaviour. and too much of it can hollow out what made something special in the first place. when beauty is constantly consumed, it stops feeling alive and starts feeling used.

maybe memory is sometimes more sacred than documentation. there is a softness in knowing that a moment exists only for the people who were there. unrecorded and unrepeatable. by keeping certain experiences offline. we allow them to stay honest, fragile, and real. not everything needs an audience to matter.

i am a photographer, so this awareness shapes how i work and live. i understand the power of images, how quickly they travel and how deeply they influence desire. a photograph can invite appreciation, but it can also invite crowds, entitlement, and carelessness. because of that, i try to be intentional. i don’t believe every beautiful place needs to be pinned to a map or turned into a destination.

sometimes the most ethical choice is restraint. choosing not to share a location, not to post a frame, not to translate a moment into content. photography, for me, isn’t about extracting beauty. it’s about witnessing it. living it. and sometimes the best way to honour what i see is to let it remain where it belongs, untouched by algorithms, held quietly in my memory or in a family photo album instead.

with love and colour,

sarah jessica marie burns xx