Between Myanmar, Portugal, and Israel, I found myself facing the same scene again and again: people gathering at night, lighting candles, walking together, praying. Each place looked different, yet each one seemed to offer a similar attempt to turn darkness into something that could be carried through together.

When I returned to the photographs, I realized that the thread connecting them was light. Not decorative light, but light as a human act, something that creates community, if only for a moment.

This is a visual story about three nights in which I tried to understand what people are really lighting when a candle is lit. In every place, the light looked the same, yet felt different. Once it invited me in, once it kept me at the threshold, and once it taught me that it is possible to remain a stranger and still feel safe.

A City Lit Up, An Invitation to Take Part

In Myanmar, the Festival of Lights, Thadingyut, marks the end of Vassa, the Buddhist rains retreat, and is celebrated with candles and lamps lit in homes, streets, and pagodas. In Buddhist tradition, it is also associated with Abhidhamma Day and the story of the Buddha’s descent from the heavens back to the human world after delivering a celestial sermon. The light, therefore, moves outward and becomes public.

Adult hands helping a young child place incense and candles among many small flames during the Thadingyut Festival in Myanmar

Boy lighting candles at a pagoda during the Thadingyut Festival in Myanmar, his face illuminated by warm candlelight

I waited for this day throughout the entire trip. The city felt ready for it: crowded, yet without pressure. Quiet in a surprising, almost ceremonial way.

Families sat on the ground, monks prayed, everyone lit candles. I arrived with a camera, and instead of feeling intrusive, I felt that space was being made for me. A brief glance in my direction, a small smile, sometimes shy, and then a natural return to prayer.

Women and children gathered around a large candle stand during the Festival of Lights in Myanmar

Row of burning candles in sharp focus with worshippers sitting and praying in the background at a pagoda in Myanmar

Here, light felt almost like the infrastructure of community, something public that makes togetherness possible. And when that happens, my foreignness melts faster than usual. Not because I belong to the ritual, but because I am allowed to be a guest.

Woman pouring oil into small lamps during the Thadingyut Festival in Myanmar, surrounded by evening blue light and glowing flames

Light of Faith, Shadow of Caution

Fátima is one of the world’s major Catholic pilgrimage sites, centered around the tradition of the Virgin Mary’s apparitions to three shepherd children in 1917. A vast sacred complex was built there, where mass prayers, services, and ceremonies draw pilgrims from around the world. One of the rituals most closely associated with the site is the candlelight procession, Procissão das Velas, held alongside the Rosary prayers, where light passes from hand to hand and is carried forward through the crowd.

Catholic pilgrims in white habits holding candles during a nighttime procession in Fátima, Portugal

Two women in white veils holding lit candles during the candlelight procession in Fátima

I am captivated by devotion. By people who travel far, holding on to faith quietly, with an almost coordinated obedience. The light does not scatter in every direction. It moves forward like a promise.

And yet this is the place where I remain at the threshold. Here I photograph carefully. Less eye contact, less conversation. I am present, but I do not fully step inside.

Clergy and pilgrims carrying candles across the sanctuary square at night in Fátima, Portugal

Nighttime religious procession in Fátima with candle-bearing participants moving through the dark

This light is powerful, but it also reminds me of boundaries: how close one can come to a ritual that is not one’s own, and how easily the camera turns me from participant into observer.

Visitors lighting tall candles in a large candle-offering area at the sanctuary in Fátima

Children standing beside tall burning candles in a candle-offering space in Fátima

A Distant Home, A Nearby Community

In Jaffa, Christmas appears in the urban landscape like another layer of life: decorations, lights, and movement around local churches. Within this mosaic are also Catholic migrant communities, including an active Filipino community that gathers for prayers and Mass in churches around Jaffa and Tel Aviv.

View down a church aisle during a Christmas service in Jaffa, with worshippers seated in soft warm light

Young man seated in a church pew during a Christmas gathering in Jaffa, looking toward the camera

The holiday is not mine, but the place is. The street is familiar, the rhythm known, and that closeness changes everything. I feel more at home, even while standing to the side and photographing someone else’s ritual.

Mother and child beside a transparent holiday display sphere during Christmas celebrations in Jaffa

Couple embracing beside illuminated holiday display spheres in Jaffa at night

I was glad to see a holiday celebrated openly, gently, with a sense of safety and belonging. People holding on to tradition and building community within life in Israel, on an evening when the light simply remained in the street.

Young girl in a Santa hat standing beside a large decorated Christmas tree in Jaffa

Child running joyfully across a stone plaza in Jaffa during Christmas festivities at night

If Myanmar made me feel invited, and Fátima left me at the threshold, Jaffa reminded me of a third possibility: to be a stranger to the ritual, and still feel included.

In the End, What Remains Is the Light

The light did not resolve any large questions. It simply did something smaller, and perhaps more important: it showed me where people find hope, and what hope looks like when it descends to street level.

Three nights, three ways of illuminating the dark: to invite, to witness, to belong.

Three Nights of Light: Between Faith, Community, and Hope

Tel Aviv Doesn’t Remember – But Some People Do