I'm changing

and I’m really enjoying the journey

Lately, I’m taking photos I wouldn’t have liked a few years ago.

I’m no longer trying to make beautiful photos (whatever that means).

I used to look for photos that made sense immediately. Clear subjects. Classic compositions. You know what I mean. Something you could understand in a second. Basically photos that didn’t need explanation. Photos that just worked.

And everything worked, technically speaking.

But I realised I was taking the same photo again and again. Different places, same result. I believe that, unconciously, I was aware of this and that’s why I tried to compensate or solve it in different ways: new camera, start shooting film, another camera?

Something has changed

I don’t know exactly when it changed, or how fast it happened. Basically because it wasn’t my decision. It was more like something slowly changed in the background and I only noticed it afterwards.

Maybe it started when I began writing more, here in Substack. Writing about photography (actually for first time in a long time), made me look at my work differently. It gave me distance to revisit my work and somehow it’s giving clarity. I started noticing patterns I hadn’t seen before. Repetition I ignored or missed. Things that I thought were random, but weren’t.

Slowly discovering my own way of seeing

Now I’m no longer trying to make a beautiful picture. I now see myself photographing what I find interesting. And even more, I’m allowing myself to experiment in a way I never really did before.

Square format. Double exposures. Chairs. Undercovers cars. Hanging clothes. Some of these pictures are not recent, but the fact that I’m giving them shape it is. And somehow, that’s changing everything.

These experiments and realisations are bringing something back that I didn’t realise I had lost: motivation. But not the motivation to improve or to get better, but just to keep exploring. To go out without a clear idea and stay longer with those things that don’t immediately make sense.

Right now I’m not chasing anything in particular and because of that, I feel closer to the process itself. It almost feels like I’m a different photographer now. A more open and curious one that is no afraid of doing and showing something different than the norm.

And for the first time in a while, I’m really enjoying the journey.