Nick Ortoleva

I can’t help but feel as though I am in this constant search for something.
I’m not too sure what it is but I know it is out there, waiting to be uncovered.
Through these moments, I look to find these signs of hope, these signs of light.
They are there and are present, but it is important to know where to look.
I look closely to my friends–my family for these flashes of light.
I know that despite it feeling dark and barren, they are the light I seek.
They remind me that through the longest days you are the recipient of small rewards.

I often turn to my camera to document and catalogue these exchanges that both my subject and I share as well as the exchanges that my subjects share with one another.

As I continue to build this archive of images and memories, I frequently look back to what I capture.

This act not only grounds me but enables me to recall that while I might not always feel present, I indeed was.

This always brings this question back into conversation: What are you looking for here, in the midst of it all?

I can’t quite articulate my response.

I am unsure if this is a tangible, physical thing or if it is simply a feeling of being.

This question makes me curious about a multitude of things.

It informs what I look at and the work I continue to make.

I think through the thick fog and chaos of it all, I seek for something to grasp onto.

Something that I can refer to that makes it all make a bit more sense. 

The small delights sprinkled throughout the day are those that keep me present.

The sequence of events that just so happens to line up.

More often than not I think that this thing I am searching for translates into light at some capacity.

It might be a literal light, but I see this light in the people who keep me afloat– here, now.

The community I surround myself with.

For they are the light and the sign of hope I search for.

They are those who are there in the darkest of times.

Those who keep me asking these questions and wanting to find the answers.

Those who strike the curiosity and turn outward to ask:

What are you looking for here, in the midst of it all?