The Shape of Becoming 2025

“The moment of change is the only poem.”
– Adrienne Rich

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The Shape of Becoming

I move through these scenes like someone learning how to see herself clearly. The blurred birds drifting in different directions remind me of how easily I used to follow the currents around me, reading others more than I ever read myself. But then the light changes, the shapes shift, and suddenly something steadier appears—three rocks in calm water, a single silhouette against red, a lone stone rising out of blue shadow.

As I photograph these moments, I feel a quiet truth forming: I am no longer dissolving into the many. Something in me is gathering, tightening like a spiral in the water, taking on a shape of its own. Even the smallest glimmers—the green beads floating in dark blue—feel like beginnings, gentle but unmistakable.

These images are my way of marking the moment before emergence: the soft, wondrous realisation that I am becoming someone distinct, someone whole, someone who finally stands in her own light.

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As I went through Punturiero’s series, I found my own body reacting in similar ways: feeling parts of my current lived experience trying to melt and allow a certain fluidity while also not losing my capacity to maintain solid and still in the places that serve me best.

LENSCULTURE ART PHOTOGRAPHY AWARDS 2026 JUROR

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BETWEEN RUIN AND REFLECTION

ROSE MORTE

Rachel Punturiero
rachelpunturiero@gmail.com
© 2026

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