Communion with the Gods
When I wake up in the morning before the sunrise, eager to see the sun peering over the horizon, I find myself in communion with the gods. When I listen to the birds chirping, embrace the breeze in the atmosphere of the morning, that brisk air, I fuel my curiosity and imagination. It’s a great way to start the day, watching the sun, pure above the clouds, behind the horizon, and conquer the morning.
Embrace Dionysus
As artists, we desire to be in a state of ecstasy. I believe that the god of ecstasy, Dionysus, is in our blood as creative people. We must embrace the chaotic and spontaneous nature of life and fuel ourselves through frenzy and ecstasy. While this is easily achieved through the use of drugs, such as alcohol, and other substances, they mostly just give you a headache. However, the use of espresso is a funny way to utilize a drug that puts you in a state of heightened awareness and alertness. Before I go to sleep, I pre-prepare four shots of espresso that I leave in my fridge so that I can consume them all the next morning with speed and get right outside.
Espresso is a very practical way to enhance the state of frenzy, but you can still achieve this through embracing danger, trying new things, and walking new paths. I believe that even through simple acts, such as weightlifting, you enter this state of ecstasy, feeling the blissful sensation of moving your physical muscles and pushing your boundaries further each day. Weightlifting is an adrenaline rush that you can achieve in the comfort of your home, simply by doing push-ups or pull-ups. Maybe with the combination of espresso and weightlifting, we can achieve a pure state of ecstasy, embracing Dionysus in a new way.
A Spiritual Practice
Street photography is an ethos and a philosophy, a way of life for me. I find that it is now becoming a spiritual practice in my daily routine. Street photography becomes the ultimate drug, where you are addicted to the feeling, sensual, visual, and auditory aspects of life while moving through the world.
When I set my body in motion without preconceived notions, simply remaining open, I exist outside the passage of time. While I am inside, my soul slowly dies, and I find that time passes by. However, with a keen eye, two legs, and a camera in your pocket, it is inevitable that you will become successful.
I believe the ultimate sign of success in any human being is pure curiosity. Curiosity fuels me each morning to wake up and catch the sunrise. I’m always surprised at what I will find, even walking the same lanes every single day. The mundane can become a place where I play and thrive.
Become God
Are we not permitted to call ourselves gods? Am I seen as mentally ill or crazy for this statement? Why is it that we are not permitted to become something greater than ourselves?
I believe that in this modern world we lack this imaginative, creative spirit, and we must return to it. Perhaps the fact that we have a lack of connection to the cosmos, the universe, the galaxy above, the shooting stars, and the beautiful colors, due to light pollution, dampens the human spirit.
I will never forget when I was a volunteer in Zambia, Africa, looking up towards the night sky, watching stars shoot across the galaxy, watching satellites move, and gazing up at these beautiful colors and hues. It’s truly unfortunate that cities are filled with such light pollution because I believe that many will go their whole lives without viewing the heavens.
Maybe as artists we should perceive this world as a dream, using the physical spaces around us as our canvas. We wield light, the ultimate source of power in this world, as our medium. We possess the power to create a new world in a fraction of a second. This act alone provides endless curiosity in my life and fuels me with a creative spirit. Simply knowing that you can never make the same photograph twice is enough to understand the true power of curiosity and photography. You can walk the same mundane lane every single day for the rest of your life and still find a new way to create something. We possess the ability to paint with light endlessly.
Every night before I go to sleep, I treat it as if it was my last waking breath, as though I will not wake up in the morning, treating this moment like a mini death. When I wake up, with my eyes wide open, I am born again, like a child. The act of waking up in the morning never ceases to put a smile on my face, as I am so grateful to be able to walk, eat food, look at things, sing, dance, fight, shout, whisper, read, and listen.
Photography becomes a superpower, and we become the gods of light itself.
When you look at something, perceive it through your unique two eyes, and position your body and your camera in the world in new ways, you affirm this confusing, wondrous, and joyful experience, lifting the human spirit to new heights that have never been seen before. Every morning when I open my door, I’m always eager, wanting more but expecting nothing. When you detach yourself from the outcome of everything in life, whether it is photographs, money, fame, or all the material things of this world, you become one with your ultimate superpower, abundance.
When abundance flows through you, you enter a blissful state, recognizing the patterns of both nature and human behavior, while studying light and the way it casts upon surfaces, or the way people dance with their two feet upon the concrete. You come in tune with the rhythm and the beat of the street.
The world is a stage, and we are all actors. When I am practicing my photography on any given street corner, I am both the conductor and participant of the orchestra or the drama that unfolds. You become closer to life through photography, and this is something I believe we lack in the modern world. Street photography becomes a spiritual experience of communing with the gods.