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Longing in the Mist of Burgundy

Photographing the concept of 'sehnsuct' in east-central France

William Sidnam
Full Frame
11 min readJan 13, 2025

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Le Jardin Darcy in Dijon, France on 27 December 2024. All photos by William Sidnam.

The funny thing about negative emotions is that they can be weirdly attractive. A song could be incredibly sad, and yet you still might want to listen along, bathing your ears in the most miserable melody ever made.

That’s because, I believe, most things aren’t purely negative. Things that may elicit negative emotions may elicit some positive ones too, creating a strange mix of negative and positive emotions that can be more intriguing than things that are ‘merely’ uplifting.

Take the concept of longing. It’s negative in the sense that you may ache for something you cannot attain. But it’s also positive: the fact that you ache for it is because it’s desirable — because if it weren’t, then, well, you wouldn’t desire it. The longing itself may be incredibly painful, and yet you can’t resist playing its cruel, twisted game.

I was thinking about the paradoxical nature of negative emotions because I recently discovered a German word called sehnsucht that struck a chord with me. According to the subreddit r/sehnsuchtpics:

Sehnsucht is a German term for deep, emotional longing or yearning. It’s often described as a profound craving for something unattainable, incomplete, or ideal, combining

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William Sidnam
William Sidnam

Written by William Sidnam

New Zealand creative based in Paris. Advertising copywriter & photographer with 3 Medium Staff Picks. Documenting metro posters at www.instagram.com/metrotears/

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