Almost routine. It’s 12.45 am midnight and i found myself sitting at the corner of my bed, reflecting on life and God. In my forties now, the “uncle” prefix is getting sticky. Just last sunday, i looked at two of my relatives children in disbelief, they have all grown into teenagers. Time is on my side, i would tell myself, while everyone withers away in time, i really felt no difference now as when i was 33.
Photography shows itself at my doorstep in 2012. I was already happily married, owned a few houses and founded a company that have survived since 1999. But Photography decides that there is more to life than warming church benches and pursuing endless meetups with clients. So i took a detour. Literally took tons of images. The process itself is a contradictory experience, creating images as it seems, have no right or wrong. You can take a shitty photo and call it art and there would be blind fans fighting on your side.
Despite the obvious genre that i immersed myself in, to put it bluntly, pretty young models, i found myself at times struggling along the morality lines of doing art vs pretending to do art. Shook my conscience’s hand and settled for non-nudity, not lingerie, non-call-it-art-peeping-tom photography. Told my Maker i would put my skills to good use and delivered photos, guidance to various young models into their career while raising red flags when wolf like photographers attempt to take advantage of my new found friends.
This journey changed me. I spent more time with these new group of friends than my with own generation of friends. The constant round table talk of who’s got the bigger dick ($$$) and empty praises of each other’s business, routine talks on children in my generation of friends have numbed my interest in joining their talks, while pushing me more towards these vibrant young people of which i have so much to offer and learn.
When a startup had an opening, i took the opportunity to venture into it. You see, technical stuffs are easy for me, i been a genius at it since 14. I quickly learned and performed all i could to keep the startup tech’s on the edge while doing gazillions of business model changes and apps direction. The startup is founded by a brilliant young guy and needless to say my collegues are all in their early twenties and i fit right in.
That was nearly 1.5 years ago.
I found myself right here again. By my bedside, thinking about that roller coaster ride i took in my life directions in career, business and my current state. Photography found me, i found photography, life changed, not just mine, many others. It’s akin to that Interstellar movie where nothing makes sense and yet everything is tied together in a complex, interwoven fabric of time.
Usually it’s at this time, among these midnight self talk and blogging i do, that an old friend resurfaces. Boredom. He has a knack in motivating me to find more adventure in life than settling down. What if i grow technically in other even more challenging areas? What is the point of my current photography of just shooting more new pretty faces and yet arriving at the same point.
Boredom extends his hand to me, come.
M changing lives with images. 