Between Lessons and Light

https://josyannesixxphotography.mypixieset.com/

[fieldsofsixx]

FIELD NOTES: EPISODE I

School — Month One

I didn’t expect this. Not from school, not from here.

I came in carrying old versions of myself. The ones shaped by past experiences, the ones that learned to stay quiet, to take up less space, to move at someone else’s pace. I thought that feeling would follow me.

But it didn’t land the same this time.

From the beginning, there was a kind of softness. People met me where I was. No one rushed me, no one made me feel like I had to keep up in ways that don’t come naturally to me. I move the way I move, and here? That’s been enough.

That shift shows up in small ways. I take more time before I shoot. I think through what I’m doing instead of rushing to capture it. After being self-taught for so long, it feels like I’m both returning to something familiar and unlearning it at the same time. Slower, more deliberate.

Somewhere along the way, school became a place I want to be.

It’s not loud or dramatic. It shows up in smaller ways. In routine, in the way I take care of myself, in the quiet decision to keep showing up on days where my past self would've gave up. It’s helping more than I expected, especially in ways that don’t always have clear words.

A year ago, I wouldn’t have recognized this version of things. The steadiness, the sense of direction, even just the feeling of wanting to be here.

I still don’t know exactly where this will lead. But for once, it doesn’t feel unsettling.

It feels open, and I’m here for what unfolds.

[fieldsofsixx]

Between The Frames: Light in Motion

My Acceptance Into Photography School

There are moments in life that don’t arrive loudly. They slip in quietly, almost gently and yet they change everything. Being accepted into photography school is one of those moments. Not because of the title it brings, but because of what it confirms.

For a long time, photography lived between the frames of my life. Between appointments. Between flare-ups. Between days when my body felt like it was negotiating against me. It was never just about taking photos. It was how I processed the world when the world felt overwhelming. How I held onto beauty when everything else felt unstable. How I reminded myself softly but stubbornly that I was still here.

When I first picked up a camera, I didn’t have a plan. I was a child but I still knew this mattered. Whether it became a career or stayed something private didn’t matter yet. I wasn’t thinking about schools or titles. I was playing. Learning. Looking. Only later did I understand what photography was giving me: the ability to pause time. To frame a moment. To find order in light, shadow and emotion, even if only for a second.

Applying to photography school forced me to slow down and look inward. Wanting something this deeply is terrifying. It asks you to sit with doubt. To question whether you’re allowed to want more than survival. Whether you deserve space. Whether you’ll be seen as an artist or reduced to your limitations. I often wondered if my eye disability would define how others saw my work before they ever truly saw me.

The acceptance didn’t erase those questions. But it reframed them.

You are allowed to want this.

Your voice matters.

You are allowed to take up space.

Your disability is not a limitation—it's part of how you see.

This wasn’t just an email. It was proof. Proof of the quiet nights editing through exhaustion. Proof of the times I called it “just a hobby” because believing in it felt too dangerous. Proof that choosing to create even on the hardest days meant something.

It’s a silent reminder that the things that keep us alive are often the things worth building a future around.

I’ve spent my life learning how to see. Through pain, uncertainty and a body that doesn’t always cooperate. Now, I get to refine that vision. To trust it. To claim it.

I’m stepping into this next chapter with nerves, excitement, and a heart that feels impossibly full. I don’t know where this path will lead, or how hard it will be.

But I do know this:

I’m choosing myself.

I’m choosing my art.

I’m choosing the dream I was once too scared to name.

And that quiet defiant yes, that choice made between the frames, might be the most powerful image I ever create.

[fieldsofsixx]

Between The Frames: Vision Beyond Sight

I didn’t become a visually impaired photographer in a single moment.

There was no before and after—no clean line where one version of me ended and another began. It happened slowly. So slowly that I kept photographing through it.

At first, I didn’t realize anything was wrong. I thought my glasses were overdue for a new prescription. Then came the floaters in my left eye—small black dots drifting endlessly through my vision. Annoying at first. Then impossible to ignore.

I was at a concert the day I understood something wasn’t right. A friend who works in optometry happened to be there too. I told him what I was seeing. He didn’t hesitate. “That’s not normal.”

A month later—December 2023—I finally sat in my optometrist’s chair. To summarize that appointment: it was bad. Very bad. I was diagnosed with bilateral uveitis—severe inflammation in both eyes, affecting my optic nerves. Three days later, during a follow-up, she sent me straight to the ER. The medication wasn’t working, which meant the cause was likely deeper than my eyes.

By then, my vision had deteriorated so much that I used my phone camera—zoomed in—to see my own feet as I walked. I was completely on my own. It was exhausting. Physically. Mentally. Quietly devastating.

The hospital ran test after test. Everything came back normal. No neurological explanation. No clear answers. We were lost.

Then a doctor mentioned a word I’d never heard before: sarcoidosis.

It was the last conversation I had with her before my case was handed over to a uveitis specialist. And it sent me down a familiar path—research. Throughout 2023, I’d been dealing with strange symptoms I hadn’t questioned much at the time, but I had taken photos of them. Just in case. Thank God I did.

Sarcoidosis explained everything.

At my first appointment with the specialist, I told her the whole story and showed her the photos. She agreed to test me, though she warned me it was considered rare. A month later, after a biopsy, the results came back. It was sarcoidosis—primarily in my eyes, but also affecting my skin.

By then, photography was already part of me. It always had been. There was grief, of course. The quiet kind. The kind that surfaces when you scroll through old work and realize you no longer see the way you once did. The kind that asks you to let go of a version of yourself you weren’t finished loving. My mental health took a hit—one I’m still navigating. For a long time, I was convinced I’d have to give up my dream of being a photographer. Eventually, we found a treatment that controlled the inflammation. But it came with its own cost: secondary cataracts.

Still—without the inflammation, even through the blur, I could see enough. With effort. With patience. With determination that never quite learned how to quit. Some days, the world softened at the edges. Other days, it fractured or dimmed. And yet—something sharpened. Not visually, but internally. Timing. Intuition. Presence.

My boyfriend—who came into my life right in the middle of all of this—kept reminding me that my disability didn’t get to decide my dreams. So I listened. I bought my first DSLR with disability leave paycheques and committed fully. I studied endlessly—YouTube tutorials, notes, practice, repetition. I brought my camera on our dates. I let myself learn slowly.

Now, I’m starting the process of enrolling in a photography class, because I refuse to let my disability be the end of my creativity.

Do I work differently than a photographer with 20/20 vision? Absolutely.

Being visually impaired didn’t take photography away from me. It rearranged it.

I don’t photograph despite my visual impairment. I photograph with it.

It lives in the way I slow down. In the way I frame without overthinking. In the way I accept missed shots as part of the story—not proof of failure. Some frames never make it into the camera. Some moments are held only in memory, or sound, or sensation. I’ve learned that those moments still count.

This is how I became a visually impaired photographer: by staying. by adapting quietly. by choosing presence over precision.

Seeing was never just about my eyes. And if following my dreams helps even one person believe they can follow theirs too—then this journey has already been worth it.