We all have secrets. Even as kids, they are there – a stain under the cushion, a hiding place, a secret stash of cookies. But most of them are hidden desires we carry deep inside ourselves and don’t dare to share. They are kept in a place so dear and private, so safe from harm, we often forget about them, our fantasies. Whether it is that dream you had of flying, being a hero or having the power to stop time, it is present in every child’s mind.
As we grow we seem to lose track of our imagination and while it weakens, life itself gets harder and the crude world becomes unbearable. Once hit by reality, I knew I couldn’t dream of flying or having superpowers anymore, or at least not as intensely as I used to. I needed to find a new way of exploring my imagination, a new way of revealing and relieving those hidden secrets of mine. Art became my way to escape, to run away without having to leave. It was like a long nap after lunch. It was like removing my shoes after a long day of walking. It was like swimming on a refreshing pool in a summer day, every time I immersed myself in art, in whatever form I could find it – movies, series, books, pictures.
Whenever I read a book, watch a movie or follow a TV series, I find a little bit more about myself and the world surrounding me. It pleases me to analyze the attitudes and expressions of a character in different situations. The human behavior is something that I have always been passionate about. There are so many things that just can’t be explained by reason or logic… you have to feel, see, smell, taste, touch. I get to find myself and lose myself with every new story. I become perceptive to details that help me predict an outcome or guess how that character may feel. I become aware of and identify things that weren’t directly stated, only implied. Also, series, movies and books open a door to foreign cultures, distinct conceptions and varied points of views inserted in each character. Being involved with a parallel reality allows me to be more open-minded as I vicariously live experiences I would probably never be able to in real life.
However, my books, series and movies became too personal to share. If I dared to explain my conclusions drawn from a scene or chapter, people would constantly look at me as if nothing I said made sense, claiming I was “over-interpreting” it. I believe there is no such thing. Still, I needed, once again, to find another source of art, one that I could expose to the people around me, even if my way of seeing it could never match theirs: I feel in love with photography and it became a skill I genuinely wanted to perfect.
I knew the whole world could look at one of my pictures, but not one single person would see it the way I would. And I didn’t have to explain it; they all could understand that a picture is a poem without words. It is the most universally understood language. With a camera in hands, I was intuitive; I trusted my instincts, because I knew my choices of light, angle and proportion would give it my personality. It would give my picture a piece of me.
It required patience to get a “perfect shot” and, honestly, most of the pictures were neither harmonious, attractive nor in the slightest bit appealing, but within the hundreds there was one worth all the time spent. One would perfectly capture a moment, an instant I wanted to hold with me forever. My perfectionist and a bit obsessive manner toward details, turned into the ability to allow myself to make mistakes and to be wise enough to know which ones to keep. I would try out new techniques and invent new methods without worrying they could fail. I was free from restrictions, something I only realized a while after I started devoting myself to this hobby. Around the time I learned one of the most sincere sayings I have ever seen: “You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus”.
They say that the eyes are the windows to the soul. But nothing is ever a one way road. If the world can see our soul through our eyes, why can’t our soul see the world? I’ve decided to believe in that ever since I started watching people’s stories on a screen or capturing moments in a picture. Now I know that through the lens of a camera, I can see things differently.
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