In the last couple of years, many things have changed in my life, just as in the lives of people around me.
I still don’t manage to figure out whether such changes occurred as an effect of my actions or were they just a natural course of events. In the end, it is perhaps some sort of providence revealing itself to us in time, allowing us to see more clearly and more truthfully. I don’t know, and I wonder…?
I probably wouldn’t have paid heed to those changes, perhaps I wouldn’t have noticed a shift in my perception of people and the world had I not been dedicated to photography which allows me to take pictures and capture images that I mostly see as an inner reflection of myself. A few years ago, this sort of yarn of my inner reflection started to slowly unwind and unravel itself. Suddenly, everything I saw took me back to my childhood, prompting me to reexamine my personal history and the history of my family values. Everything appeared in light of my early life, when I was coming of age and getting in touch with my instincts and the creative force within me. My long-dormant impulses were reactivated once again, and my reawakened eye became sensitive to all those experiences, perceiving them as an all-pervading picture of youth and rejuvenescence.
What are you supposed to do when all those pictures start emerging? Well, taking photos was a logical answer. One should use all available means and just take photos, keep making snapshots as much as possible. It is also a moment of truth, so to speak, the right time for a final showdown with conventions and rules, with technical ideals, a showdown with the expectations that weight us down and frustrate us in our attempts to work freely.
For many years now, I have been a prisoner of those ideals. I believe that we are in part shackled by technical imperatives imposed through the education system, which keeps us bound to them, often giving precedence to technology over creativity.
Like many others, I am convinced that relying too much on the power of technology subverts our sensory nature.
The goal is to get rid of the assumption that having a good camera necessarily means an improvement in our work, that expensive precision instruments and technically advanced tools would send a message that is more authentic and singular. No! We should say it loud and clear that it does not work that way, and we should repeat this over and over again.
WE are the ones that make such progress, not by looking outside, but by asking questions and illuminating the paths that lead inwards.