Growing up without gentle examples of love, photographing couples and families became my unexpected way of studying it, understanding it, and slowly believing in it.
I didn’t grow up seeing love expressed through gentle affection or open conversations.
In my family, love looked different. It looked like providing a roof over our heads, food on the table, and making sure we had what we needed to survive. But emotional comfort, affection, or open conversations about feelings were rare.
My parents weren’t the most educated, and like many traditional Asian households, love was expressed more through responsibility than through words.
Discipline was strict. I grew up being caned when I misbehaved. At the time, I didn’t question it much — it was simply the way things were done. Many children around me grew up the same way.
But it also meant that warmth, vulnerability, and emotional reassurance were things I rarely saw at home.
Caption: *Sometimes love shows itself in the quietest gestures*
When my parents eventually separated, it felt like the ground beneath me had disappeared.
The idea of love — something I had already struggled to understand — suddenly felt even more confusing. If love was supposed to hold people together, why did it fall apart so easily?
For a long time, I didn’t know what love was supposed to look like.
Ironically, the place where I began to learn about it wasn’t in my own life.
It was through my camera.
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When I first started photographing couples and families, I wasn’t comfortable with it at all.
Intimate moments between partners felt unfamiliar. Sometimes I didn’t even know where to place myself while documenting them. Watching people naturally lean into each other, hold hands, or share quiet moments of affection felt strangely foreign.
I often felt like an outsider observing something I had never fully experienced.
But the more I photographed couples, the more something started to change.
Love lives in the in-between moments.
I started noticing the small things.
Not the grand gestures you see in movies, but the quiet moments that happen naturally between two people.
A partner adjusting the other’s jacket without being asked.
A quick glance during a hike to check if the other person is okay.
The kind of silence that feels comfortable rather than awkward.
These moments were simple, but they felt incredibly meaningful.
And slowly, I began to realize something important.
Love doesn’t always show up dramatically.
Most of the time, it shows up quietly.
Every family/couple expresses love differently.
Photographing couples and families exposed me to so many different versions of love.
Every couple had their own rhythm. Every family had their own dynamic. Some were playful and loud, while others were calm and gentle. Some showed affection openly, while others expressed care through subtle gestures.
Through these experiences, I started to form my own understanding of what felt healthy, what felt genuine, and what kind of love I hoped to have in my own life someday.
Photography became more than just a creative pursuit.
It became a way of observing, learning, and reflecting.
In a strange way, photographing love felt a little like exposure therapy — repeatedly witnessing something that once felt unfamiliar until it slowly started to make sense.
Love isn’t always loud. Often, it’s steady. Sometimes love is simply choosing each other again.
Over time, I began to see love differently.
Growing up, I sometimes associated love with instability — something fragile that could disappear without warning.
But through my lens, I saw something else.
I saw that love isn’t just a feeling. It’s also a commitment. It’s something people build, maintain, and choose again and again through small everyday actions.
It’s not always perfect, and it’s rarely dramatic in the way movies portray it.
But it’s real.
I’m still learning what love means.
But photography has given me something I didn’t realize I needed — the chance to witness love in its many forms.
Through the lens, I didn’t just document it for others. I slowly began to understand what it could look like for myself.
Sometimes, the things we struggle to understand in our own lives become clearer when we learn to see them through someone else’s story.
Creator’s Credit
[Introduction]
Michelle Celeste is a documentary-style photographer drawn to honest, unposed moments. By getting to know the people she photographs, she creates space for real experiences that unfold naturally in front of the camera.
[Digital Touchpoints To Link Back To Your Creative Business]
• Instagram: @knittedlovestories
• Business URL: I don’t have a website yet but can I update again once I have them over the next few months?
• Email: primroseberries@gmail.com
• Contact Number: +65 96737321
• Facebook: NA
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michellecelestelim/
• Others: Other IG handles that people can get to know me and my work through @underleskies @underlestars