How Laura Hynd learned to Let Go

When I first heard Laura Hynd presenting her work ‘The Letting Go’, I felt a shiver down my spine. I was particularly touched by the sincerity, the naked soul coming through her eyes and the vulnerability of her voice as she talked about relationships with family, friends, lovers, siblings, people and especially herself.

I could see what she was voicing in all the beautiful photos she was presenting.

This is a beautiful story of photography as a form of healing, new discovery and self-awareness.

Laura started by saying “my life had unraveled and I needed to knit it back together… to understand and see with new eyes in order to move on.”

Photo by Laura Hynd

I have been thinking of her work for a while; it was extremely fascinating, together with the story behind it. I could empathize with that story too, so I wanted to discover more. When I met her again we immediately connected and decided to talk further about the whole project.

This is the story of every woman, if not person, who at a certain point in life has doubts. Questions life and events, and wants to discover the reason of many things: why lovers have left, disappointments, things that don’t always go as planned, why people hurt others and why we are not satisfied with what we have and who we are.

Often these questions are left unanswered, but Laura wanted to explore further and decided to embark on this journey of discovery.

The idea behind this project came from a need to explore her notions of photography alongside a desire to explore a much more personal side of her creativity.

’The Letting Go’ stemmed from wanting to focus on perceptions of women, which soon led to others' perceptions of me and my own self-perceptions. The difference is quite extreme.”

“I wanted to really celebrate women, and so started working on my own bodily self esteem, which I should have been celebrating but instead had spent years worrying about.”

“Since beginning this series I have also photographed many men, and a lot of them have photographed me…I can look back at all of the shoots with men and women and identify my role in the relationship... sister, muse, lover, friend, mentor, daughter etc.”

Photo by Laura Hynd

The journey of photographing was as amazing and inspiring as the result: “The feelings of liberation and trust resulted in an overwhelming amount of bonding in a very short time. It cemented many friendships, healed past problems and gave me an extreme amount of faith in people.

‘I wanted to let go of my control of a shoot, so at the beginning of the series, thought it would be fascinating to start each one with the same set up, take a couple of photographs and then allow the sitter/collaborator to do whatever they wanted. There were no rules.”

When you photograph someone, they put a huge amount of trust in you. You can explore, investigate and see their personalities with no filters or preconceptions.

Perception and self-perception are at the centre of this beautiful story. Laura has always been fascinated by ones self-perception in contrast to the way they are perceived by others.

She says she grew up being insecure and unsure of herself. When being photographed (from childhood, right through her twenties), by family and friends she always disliked the results. Now, looking at those old photos, she wonders why.

I look at her and see so much beauty coming from her deep soul and her eyes, and wonder why too. Though at the same time I understand and empathise with that feeling.

“Often, social pressure, upbringing and personal experiences leave us with a warped or unfair view of ourselves” says Hynd. It’s only when you reach a level of maturity or when you really touch the bottom that you feel a push inside that forces you to investigate, do something, clean up and discover that no one has the right to let you down or make you feel insecure.

We all have something amazing inside – or outside - it’s just a matter of baring your soul, seeing with honest eyes and letting go.

Laura’s piece of advice to other people that may feel a connection - even with a little part of this story - is: “take risks, be brave! The worst that can happen is that you’ve learned something new…”

And, in this amazing journey of self-discovery, you might learn that sometimes it’s just a matter of acceptance of faults…and, as Leonard Cohen says:  “there’s a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in”!