Mid-life illumination

As the sun was shining a few days ago, I felt as if a witty game was unfolding – unauthorized – inside of me. Managed to ignore the smoldering (nevertheless potentially anarchic) joy for a few hours until – just as the daylight was sending an increasing amount of “attention, I’ll soon be out” signals – I’ve caught myself bursting out of the door, with the camera in hand.

Not sure of my business out there, looked around: and plenty of smiles, sighs, and all sorts of ideas began springing from the things around. Short circuited by the unexpected overflow, my mind froze. Luckily enough, after traveling through some other parts of me – and, I assume, with no further place in there to go and play – each transmission drained itself into my right index which, in turn, pressed the shutter button down.

As one thing led to another, what started there continued along the city’s river with the appearance of some purposeful activity – like a blitz photo trip. Rocked by sensations in between serenity and productivity, I felt delighted and content at the same time: in the end, I had nothing to do but watch an interesting play, resting assured that something was being done after all, about it all. I have to say though, a few times I’ve managed to interfere and actually do something – that is to hold back, to be exact. I’ve suppressed my finger’s performance when that worn man with a matching bag came into scene, yawning next to a delighted, fashionable marketing face in a poster. I’ve cut out the student feeding the gulls (left for the park when she went to the dormitory to bring bread), a.s.o.

Even with such disruptions on my part, the side pipe of the play – the productive one – steadfastly rolled into my pantry almost 150 pictures in less than 2 hours. That’s an average of about 1.20 pictures per minute. You can find samples of them below.



Yes?... Ok, I’ve picked the photos out. Nevertheless… there’s nothing truly interesting in there. Something beautiful. Or infuriating. Or that makes you think. Or smile. Not even a good story. When I look at the pictures, I see nothing close to what I felt or thought when taking them. And I kinda knew this would be the case, every time I pressed the shutter.

The confirmed prediction dispelled any joyful, careless leftover feelings, leaving me face to face with a question that, although previously gone unnoticed, has been standing there all along, kind but firm, and didn’t look like making a disappearing act just now: how does one get from taking pictures to taking great pictures?...

As if suddenly freed from misty, legendary depths, accounts of great photographers (I’ve leafed before through books on photography, after carefully reading up until the f numbers section each time) surfaced and started to really make sense: the otherwise boring technical explanations about careful selection of aperture and lens; details about framing, thoughts on choice of subject, etc. And stories about light (sun, season), long hours – sometimes days, months, or even years (sure, those days seem now long gone) – of patience, then the decisive moment, a.s.o.

Let’s sum it up: WORK. One has to use the fuel of his interest and… work!! You cannot just get out from nowhere, see something, and “seize” it with a reflex snapshot, hoping it’ll turn out allright. Nothing great hurries to jump in the narrow space of a greedy, lazy pocket: you have to court the feeling, the idea, the moment. DANCE with it. But if you’ve never properly moved your feet before (just imagined you’d do it perfectly), take lessons. Then get out there and… practice! And one day, the Music may start!

Bewildered by my finding, I've replaced the word “photograph” with whatever else crossed my mind. And couldn’t stop laughing, watching as a boring truism turned into breakthrough news for me – and stratospheric heroes into stubborn dancers, following a tune known only to them…

Tons of thoughts kept inundating me: what ‘work’ meant to me (even if in the sparkly advertising), or to my parents, during communist times, or to a whole population – the word is right – here, and where to now, etc., but I'll leave them out. Oh, just this one: yesterday I've made a weird first entry into my Google calendar – for some dancing classes…