Camille Hughes stepping between large rocks on a city street, her patterned dress blurred with movement

Reality does the talking

These aren't essays about ideas. They're what I see when I look at a person, a family, a business—written down. Read a few, and you'll start to see the pattern for yourself.

Some of it is written. Some of it is spoken, photographed, filmed. All of it is noticing.

From my field of view

  • The steel beams of a stadium criss-crossing against a blue sky.Featured

    Integrity is not enough

    Resilience is what you need after the load lands wrong. This is about what determines where it lands.

Essays

  • Camille standing against a sunlit concrete wall, her back to the camera, with the long shadows of a woman and a man cast beside her

    I had never hired a man

    On fear, vigilance, and what happens when a workaround starts making decisions for you.

  • A concrete wall with the shadow of a signpost

    The governor

    For most of my life I was running two systems at once. My full mind, and the governor that kept it in check.

  • close up of forest ferns with golden sunlight and shadows across the fronds

    Sophia

    Sometimes we write the truth before we know where it belongs. I called her Sophia because I thought she held the wisdom and light I could see.

Observations

  • A large arrow painted on a brick lined street.

    Start with self

    There is no single path to becoming yourself. If there were, someone would have found it by now.

  • The carved stone arch of the Bridge of Remembrance in Christchurch, framed against blue glass buildings.

    There are no universal blueprints

    A bridge doesn't get to choose whether gravity applies to it. And understanding gravity doesn't tell you what a specific bridge should look like. But it does inform how you design it.

  • The steel beams of a stadium criss-crossing against a blue sky.

    Integrity is not enough

    Resilience is what you need after the load lands wrong. This is about what determines where it lands.