Igor

So, few posts ago I was pabbling about how I think western civilization is making the lives of photographers difficult. Another side of it are ordinary poeple, who living in a world dominated by visual imagery are constantly pushed to ask how do we compare to the standards presented by advertising/fashion world? It is sick since all what such system is providing, is illusive standards of life and no confirmations. Often it is fear before exploitation that I am not good enough.

So how to get a way around it?

Couple of weeks ago I visited the place where my grandparents used to live. In that environment I met couple colorful characters. With one of them I happened to take sauna together. He is a setu, believe me. If you should find yourself going to sauna with setu, make sure you are sober. Since otherwise you may die in the middle of heat. Those guys are made from weird material. They will tell you that heat does good and there is no such thing as too much heat since it will make satan to flee from your body. For that to happen you must suffer, a lot. Well I could play along with the show but these guys have exersised it from their childhood on. So I was no match to him and you are warned :)

While the evening went on I noticed that guy and I noticed myself from the thought that I would like to make few shots of him. The thing was that there were other guys asking to make a picture with him. He furiously disagreed since he said that noone should photograph him. Only maybe his children if they urgently need. And so a little bit later I approached him privately. We spent good time, just talking about life, the past, the present happenings, our children and what we think of them. Somewhere in between all that I let him know that I would like to make dedicated portraits of him, that I am a photographer and I have noticed something worthy of recording. As I saw hesitation I let him know that I will be in the garage, it will take me 5 minutes to set up lighting. If people are hesitating, it’s that they are not thinking negatively about your plan, they need additional confirmation of trust. Which might come in a various ways. As we met in the garage I did few shots, one thing led to another and as I showed him couple of shots what worked in my opinion, I won his trust. Thank God for digital, it has happened again and again, people get excited when they see themselves in a new angle :)

I won his trust because I was confident in myself, I was not afraid. Not afraid of failing, since failure would have let up to some different and unexpected result anyway. I would not have been able to do that if I would have something else in my mind than trust. For example I would might seen him just as a picture I need to get or a trophy I need to conquer. It would not have worked. Thats why I love my photography, It has almost nothing to do with the photography, its all about human touch.

In the past I have had tremendeous trouble finding contact with people, I have been afraid of them. My troubles finding contact with other people have been related largely on my low self esteem and which in turn has been expresseid in ignorance and arrogance. Arrogance that people are living their lives wrong sealed me from other contacts. It allowed me to pitty them, how phatetic is that?. But these days are past. Now I am wondering that the only reason why I could find contact with Igor was only the reason of respecting him. Respecting what he is and what he has lived trough. Hearing his stories and looking to his eyes I see that he has lived his life much more full of courage and with lot less fear than me. Yes some of his actions and decisions may have led to negative outcome for him but he has made those decisions as he saw fit. Hes has done what he thought was right thing to do. And thats why we live as we live, survive rather. Being arrogant and ignorant is just a way of coward. Remember that when you should meet such people, it will help you if you would like to become friends. Personally I’ve been a coward. But let me ask, what kind of purpose has life if it is half-lived, if our self preservance has become so low that it limits us from living our lives to full extent? I plan not to be that kind of person anymore. I want that others would feel my presence and I would feel their presence instead of being a “blink in a bliss”.