The greatest part of living in Europe is the proximity of different cities with their varied history and culture and if you enjoy photography and travel as I do, then magic is just a few hours away.
Now being back home in Germany, the short journey feels like a pleasant dream added to my visual diary of this amazing world we live in.
One of my favorite things about big cities is movement. People moving, going places, coming from places, going up stairs, crossing roads, cycling, running, walking and playing a part in rotating the great metropolis wheel. It’s the urban magic waiting for us photographers on every corner.
I think the beat way to feel the souls of a place is to meet it at a magical moment, a time when something as common as night surrendering to day never fails to amaze us. Every time that I witness a sunrise, it seems as if I gained a chunk of time, a bonus bit of living that would otherwise have been lost to me.
Vibrant, colorful, artful, tolerant, cosmopolitan, reasonable, creative, culinary, interesting… some words that pop in my mind when I reflect on Berlin. Few days were just a teaser for me and they just tug at me to visit again and again. What a city!
images taken in Essaouira, Morocco
It’s 2019, I used to imagine 2019 as a child with a cloud or mystery and wonderment, what could the future hold? How will we be? where will we be? what would we be doing?
I have always been fascinated with the unknown. It is about that excitement in the pit of my stomach every morning that is a fine line between inspiration and not knowing what the day will hold. Life changed me, it took me to different places in myself and in the world, I gained and I lost, I laughed and I cried, but this gift of loving the unknown never left me. I am thankful for that. It’s what drives me to create, to want to explore and to see rather than look, feel and not only be.
I wish you all an inner peace and the gift of inspiration, no matter where you are and what you are doing. Life is a mystery, waiting to be lived.
Marrakech, a city that does not trust photographers, a place that lives off tourists and snubs them say the same time, but that’s just on the surface. In the last 4 days I asked every local I had the chance to speak with why is there such an automatic and immediate negative response to being photographed, and strangely, no one could give me a straight answer. So I took an approach that I never had to use before in all my travels, I asked, then I laughed and joked (speaking Arabic is definitely helping) and somehow the ice was breaking here and there. It has definitely been a great exercise in disarming, building trust and finding a human common ground connection that is making it all worthwhile.
More about my day in the Berber villages in the next post.
One of the things I was looking forward to moving to Europe is the proximity of amazing cities. So many photographic opportunities are a few hours drive away and the impressions are varied and endless.
You often hear people escaping mentally to their happy places where they can reconnect with who they are meant to be for a moment; rewriting some chapters, rearranging some priorities and for just a short moment, just ‘being’.
I found my happy place when I went to Myanmar. I could not stop smiling there, it was a wellness trip of sorts where I met the ‘me’ that Life had made me forget.
Have you met your happy place?
Imagine stacking all your belongings, your clothes, books, electronics, furniture, house, car, pictures, everything and setting it on fire. Then imagine owning a robe, a bowl for food, a simple bed and a toothbrush. How might that feel?
It’s incredible how attached we get to our ‘things’ and how much simpler and lighter life would be with less things.
Nowadays though some monks I met had iPhones 🙂 and they labeled them their 6th and final belonging. That’s how powerful a role the media plays on our lives.
Day 91 of 365~
Monks in bagan~ Myanmar
Wishing all who observe the Easter holidays a peaceful weekend with your loved ones!
Day 86 of 365~
Image taken in a small village near Bagan, Myanmar
