When I started out in photography, I always thought: if I could shoot in New York City, Tokyo, Paris or Amsterdam, my street photos would be much better... But it turns out that it's all about your imagination, creativity, and patience.
I always say the Universe's favorite hiding place for the most awesome stuff is right behind fear. Isn't that a little unfair? Why doesn't the Universe put the great stuff right before the fear, so everyone can enjoy pure bliss?
Do you have the feeling that, nowadays, almost everyone is taking photos? Not even that long ago, photography was much more exclusive.
In order to tell you this crazy story, we have to go back to May 2015. As you may have read, my brand new $1,600 L lens fell to the ground after I got it out of my backpack. The glass didn’t have any scratches, however, the focus was completely broken and all photos turned out blurry. Although it was a huge shock at first, I wanted to turn this moment around and “develop the negatives”. I quickly fell in love with this broken look and created a set about broken characters with a broken lens by a former broken soul called “Broken: Amsterdam”.
The next time you are frustrated, having a bad day or negativity is simply surrounding you, break the cycle and turn everything around with your photography. It always amazes me how incredibly powerful photography is in bringing light into the darkness of life. While most of the things don’t have this almost magical power, your photography has. It’s one of the most positive things you could do, especially in moments when you need it the most.
This is the story of how I wrestled with death twice to live for photography. Before I wrote this article, I told a couple of people about it since it means so much to me. Although some didn’t understand how I could talk so openly about this topic, I decided that it’s my duty to generate awareness and help others even if it means that I’m revealing my biggest struggle in front of the world.
In my early teenage years I loved nothing more than gaming and going to LAN parties every weekend. Unreal Tournament, Battlefield 1942 and Counter-Strike were my favorites back then. Although I also liked strategy games like Warcraft 3, I spent most of my time playing Counter-Strike with my friends till early in the morning.
I'm not much of a gamer anymore besides an occasional SNES night, but recently a crazy thought crossed my mind. If street photography were a game, it would definitely be a first-person shooter.
Just over a year ago, photography was my most precious hobby. I really enjoyed it and took photos fairly often, but I felt that if I wanted to take this thing to the next level, I had to do something extraordinary. A couple of days before New Year's Eve I decided to start a "365 days 365 photos" project like so many other photographers before me. It felt like a great idea, and so I just went for it. What could possibly happen?