Egoism, inspiration, and consumerism

Why do artists create?

- They want to change the world! (=inspiration)

How can they do that?

- By reaching the masses! (=consumerism)

Who do they want to change the world?

- Make it better! (=egoism)

For whom do they want to make the world better?

- For other?! For themselves?!

This was taking me into the territories of anthropology - because documentation of the human existence is rife with questions of fulfillment, of change, of inspiration and egoism, and of consumerism. From the early days of the human tribe, we have been exchanging goods, we have been looking for the things we need (and things we also want) and have given away things we had in excess, be it money, or food, or shelter, or one of the other Maslow layers. And all for the self-actualization, for finding peace with oneself. I look around and wonder why I want to get a deeper grasp of the systems we live in. Is it all just some misfiring (and mis-wiring) in my brain? What is the link between all of the beautiful things that one surrounds oneself with and the type of creative work one does? Isn't this where inspiration comes from? Isn't creativity like 5-grade physics: energy doesn't get lost, it just transforms?

Elizabeth Gilbert writes: "With all respect to the Buddha and to the early Christian celibates, I sometimes wonder if all this teaching about nonattachment and the spiritual importance of monastic solitude might be denying us something quite vital. Maybe all that renunciation of intimacy denies us the opportunity to ever experience that very earthbound, domesticated, dirt-under-the-fingernails gift of difficult, long-term, daily forgiveness." and this is the things about creativity - one has to lose all restraints from the wheel, and let the cart drive on its own. 

In photography, I often forget when I am taking pictures and when not. I do want to get my hands dirty, I want to be ignorant of what the person is saying and I want to be participating in what the person is telling me; I want to be there and yet to look from aside; I want to be one with the camera, and yet want to feel that it is a tool; I want to record intimacy; I want to record the moment that person sees only me and no one else in the conversation. And I want this for my own actualization - for my own satisfaction of fulfillment and peace. And I also know that I want them to feel satisfied and fulfilled from this exchange - of a service, really.

An exchange of a service - sounds..., what? "Cheap"? "Impersonal"? "Non-conversational"? It is all that perhaps. But that's the only way to get through, to learn to firgive, to learn to understand and to listen, to smile and frown, to tell the truth. 

Living alone and travelling in Amsterdam

Ever since I graduated from university, I've been living alone. It isn't so bad. You have all the time in the world to wake up in the morning, to roll out of bed, the re-imagine the cleaning routine, to make as much noise as you like when getting home, to scream "Bullshit" when you read some ridiculous email (or read the news). It is ok to forget to turn the heating on in the bathroom and it is freezing cold when you get in the shower, it is ok when you accidentally set off the alarm on Sunday morning because you had forgotten that it is a weekend. It is ok to not do the shopping and just order in. It is ok to go to bed at 8 pm, wake up at 3 am, and go jogging in the darkness. It is ok read in bed until you have finished that captivating book and it is ok to fall asleep three minutes after that movie had begun. It is ok to invite friends over for dinner whenever you feel like it. It is ok to leave the trash in even after the fruit flies had become unbearable. It is ok to let the empty jars pile on top of each other until you gather the will to carry them outside to the glass-dispensing container. It is ok to let the dust bunnies invade every corner of the house (they aren't all that difficult to get rid of). It is ok to forget to do the laundry (as long as you don't run out of clothes altogether) and it is ok to use the dry rack as a wardrobe.

Living alone for such a long time makes one incapable of imaging what it would be like even to go on vacation. One gets stripped down from all that defined oneself - because one is defined not by what one stands for but by what the others stand for. We are what distiguishes us from everyone else. But when one lives alone, when one's life revolves just around oneself, one loses self-identity and ends up feeling alone and not being able to coexist with anyone else. And that's why when one goes on vacation, one finds it odd.

So, to avoid such feelings of dream, one surrounds oneself with great people in the office, goes home just when one wants to be alone, and enjoys vacations only with friends and family. This time I went on vacation to meet one of my two best friends from university.

As I am sitting writing this from Amsterdam, I realize even more tangibly one's need of Another - on night 1, when I was alone, Amsterdam was just another city, but on night 2, when I walked around with my friend, we laughed (at Amstermdam's expense) on every corner. Amsterdam is a city of extremes: elegance and decadence, fashion and chic, crowds and loneliness (otherwise, why the promiscuity - no judgement implied), labyrinths and tall buildings (tall by the standards of the narrow streets they overshadow), no open spaces and small closed spaces, couples (and trisomes) everywhere. Here people rush when they walk alone and stall when they walk together. Here people ride on bikes only in couples (because it is just so much more dangerous to do that alone - you ride safer when you have to make sure the Other survives). Here magic happens from holding hands not to get lost in the crowd. Here magic lasts less than a second because there is another one in line. And yet magic stays with your forever like in a movie. Here the morning fog has a wholly different effect than the London morning fog, and that's a good thing. Here "creativity" is an euphemism and a rainbow is not.

And if one doesn't have the other or just another, one will lose oneself in the depths of the city canals, in the fog of its coffee shops, in the lusciousness of its red seductions, and their meanderings through the soul. One's got to be up for the game.

And maybe that's why people from Amsterdam are who they are - gamers - open, ready to smile at the street photographer, multi-lingual, provocative, creative, liberated and extrovert - they need the constant stimulation, the challenge, the extremes, the energy. They need to show proudly who they are and where they are going. Their honesty is admirable (even if unreal in its schizophrenia) and their schizophrenia is admirably honest.

Would I be able to live here among them and with them and alongside them and in them? The small streets, the noise, the danger on the streets (and I am talking about those crazy cyclist and the trams), the lack of private spaces, the old constructions (not to mention that they are all sinking), the potted energy, the suffocating crowd, the expectation...? Those questions naturally come. We talked about them with Nik but then he had a plane to catch and I was looking for someone to experience the city with.

And I found someone. You plan and plan: a small treasure hunt - because you really want to see her. You set up three time slots and, like in the movies, your entire world starts rotating around those time slots. First, you think of lunch but then you don't have time so you content yourself with just some peanuts (literally) - nothing bad in them but you wished for a salad (but she is worth waiting for). Walking a few blocks around - you don't want to seem too desperate (which you probably are if you are thinking in those terms). You arrive early, although your heart already knows that this isn't the time you'll meet her and that the treasure hunt shall continue. Despite this, you actually wait 15 more minutes (of course under the pretext that you can just observe the couples around and take street photographs). After this you give up. Until the next meeting - same place, two hours later. By that time, you know the routine already: walking around almost aimlessly ("almost" because you've got the aim to find a way for time to pass by faster), making a few pictures out of focus to "demonstrate the great patterns the bokeh your lens can do" (which loosely translates to "help time acquire meaning"), you find something else to snack on (this time you wish for something sweet to help offset the gloomy mood) and go for marzipan, and you try to go shopping (but you know perfectly well that nowadays few things are exclusive to that city and you give up to avoid logistics overload). It is in that moment that you realize how much this plays like a movie, perhaps a bit like "Before Sunset", not as much like an Woody Allen as you might wish (because things always end up funny and unexpected in those movies), far from a typical British romantic comedy (no matter how much you'd love to live through one). But it is exactly in the midst of this movie that you feel the optimism so you go for the third appointed time - that one's got to work, right? This time you arrive in time, not too early. And as faith has its way, there is a small temptation on the other side of the street - a street gang playing with the rainbow of soap balloons as big as three people and as colorful as thousands of CoffeeCompany shops with their rainbow menus. You go there and you seem to be more focused, the camera is out, all in manual settings, focusing is quick and determined, and you shoot and shoot and shoot; 5 pictures later, you know you've got it, and maybe she is already waiting. But your heart sinks - there are many people on that square but you don't recognize any of them. You realize that you have fallen for your own overenthusiasm with the hunt. Time seemed to have stopped and your departure tomorrow seems an eternity away. You don't know what else to do, so you walk slowly back to the hotel.

The night seems long, you wake up at 5, try to sleep a bit more, go to Starbucks for your drop of caffeine, go back to the hotel, go through with the teleconference for work and you almost flip when you get that message: "konstantin!!!! no!!! oh my god i was just in the middle of writing you a text message  i somehow thought you still had time to meet up today.... i didn't have internet access during the day yesterday at all  i am gonna send you the text message anyways, maybe i'm in luck...". And it is in that moment that you know that this is meant to be like this - an hour and a half is sometimes all that you need. And you don't know if that conversation was going to change your or her life (what a silly idea!) but you know that you needed it, you feel it through and through, you are engulfed in it. You look straight into her eyes and you know that you won't look away. The thought of missing the train on purpose does cross your mind but that would ruin the spontaneity. The thought of picking up the camera and taking a picture of her comes to you but you quickly dismiss it because now matter how unobtrusive, it is still an extra layer and you do want all your shields down. So, you don't. And you enjoy how she plays with the chocolate wrapping, and how she urges you to run so you don't miss that train and how she actually runs with you to the door. And you feel special because you are the only one who runs for that train with someone else by the side.

And so it is on the train that you think again about living alone, visiting the cities alone, and meeting people with open eyes. It is on the train (funnily enough, not earlier) that you manage to connect the dots and to realize that, yes, she did help you define the borders of who you are a little better, and so do you wonder if she sees with greater clarity as well. And you realize that it is not the "living alone" that makes you alone but the treasure hunt - just because you trick yourself into feeling alone when in fact, the world is always with you. And you smile at the sun, because you've finally figured it out.

Dreaming [an essay]

This essay first appeared on my blog in August 2010.

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

Like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore –

And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over –

Like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags

Like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

Hamlet, Langston Hughes

“Do NOT dream of the illusory!” I would shout, did I have the power over mind. “Do NOT think of anything chimerical!” I would scream at the top of my lungs, did I have the power over thought. “Do NOT crave for the impossible!” I would roar with disgust, did I have the power over soul.

Did I have power over my thoughts, I would be … a pessimist. Did I have power over my soul, I would be … a realist. But if only I had power over my dreams, I would be a self-restrained realist and a self-disciplined pessimist. But that is not what I am. Because I do dream and imagine things, because I cannot control severely my illusions, because I do not want to be captured by pure rational thought. But people need to dream, to long for things, to love. They need to travel through mind, to experience the flawless perfection, to receive the love that dreams create.

However, what happens if a dream fails, if the expectations turn up to be sand castles? What remains after the wave is sand. And few are strong enough to rebuild the castle on the very same place – those who are in love with love know that the sea comes again every minute but this is no obstacle. This is the meaning of their life. To learn how to make the castle stronger is the sensual ravishment that makes people crave and come back to it every time a dream is deferred.

What differentiates people’s dreams is the longed-for results. But there are different people and very different dreams. And it is on these different dreams that the reaction to the deferral depends. The more modest the dream is, the less rottening and less drying-up it is. However, rarely do people dream of modest things because they want to have what they do not and usually it is in spheres very different from the appropriate for them.

There is a particular example of dreaming for the impossible, or even dreaming for too much of it, that I remember particularly well because of it close relation to one of my favorite books “Siddhartha” by Hermann Hesse. It is a film called “Samsara”. Hesse’s character is a boy who wants to learn cognition, to understand the world, to mingle with it, to achieve Nirvana. He goes through many obstacles which train him – he gets to know the life of Tibetan monks, the carnal sins. But then he achieves the salvation he has been dreaming of. The “Samsara” character goes the other way round. In the beginning of the film his story is told – he is a monk, who has achieved the Nirvana and has been meditating for 3 years, 3 months, 3 weeks and 3 days. But he then falls in love with a peasant girl. He marries her and starts leading normal life. But then comes a moment when his carnal desires are too strong for him to control and he decides to return to the monastery. Unfortunately for him, there is no way back. His dream of achieving more supreme Nirvana going all the way that Siddhartha goes fails because he cannot possible have everything he is dreaming of. He is forced to return to his life of a land-owner. His dream becomes a sore, his Nirvana – impossible to achieve again, his soul – restless. The price he pays is too high one – it becomes a burden. For him there is only one philosophy from there on: to prevent a drop from evaporating, drop it in the sea. He needs to return to his sea and to accept his weakness.

Unlike him, a few centuries back in time lived a romantic poet whose dreams of purifying the world predominate in his poetry – Percy Bysshe Shelley. Imagine Shelley in the depressing bleakness of the reality, tortured by misery and death, watching the sky and waiting for inspiration. This must have been the picture he saw – his escape from reality and cruelty, his dream. What a better relief than the mysterious catalyst “silver sphere”?

Teach me half the gladness

That thy brain must know,

Such harmonious madness

From my lips would flow,

The world should listen then

As I am listening now.

If he could have learn this and accept it unequivocally, be would have been able to recompose his ideas and accept the misery around him which was to be converted to human happiness and harmony. His dream would be his strongest weapon. If we search though the archives of Coca Cola, we will find literally thousands of advertisements appealing for the same – “we would like to instruct the world to sing and live in perfect harmony” This is a group of people, who popularize a utopian dream, based on the simple condition of drinking coke. Perhaps, Shelley’s skylark with her beautiful voice and immortal presence shows us a shorter way to harmony. Mary Shelley (Percy’s wife more famous for her creation of “Frankenstein”) claims that this is one of the most beautiful poems of her husband. But for Percy Shelley it is something more – it is the connection between idealism and radical thoughts. The message sent by the skylark has the power to provoke the change of which the poet dreams. The “unbodied joy” of that “silver sphere” consists of a centuries-old philosophic thought, inspired by Plato and all the other Greek philosophers developing the theme “Ideal Harmony”. Freedom. Shelley tries in his own way to be free: independent from the contempt of his contemporaries, free to express his observations through his poetic message. The gaudy moods of the lark echo resonantly in that idea even now – two hundred years after they were observed. This is a heritage for those of us who try to make/find our own niche of freedom.

While this dreams remains unachieved, there is another possible end – to achieve the dream and not be happy again. This is what happens to Patrick Suskind’s character Jean-Baptist Greneuille. Jean has the most delicate nose in whole France. He is enchanted with the beauty of the numerous scents that fill the streets of 18th-century Paris. His wanting to become perfumer becomes his obsession and he finds ways to fulfil his dreams. Faith meets him with a beautifully smelling girl. He is so obsessed that he wants to create a scent that has her enchanting aura. Unfortunately by the time he meets her he still does not know how to create scents. To become perfumer becomes his incantation through which he is bound to achieve his greatest dream of all. Like a real greneuille (fr. frog) he does become master. He knows already how to take a scent out of the source. And his sources become innocent victims of Nature, favoured by beauty. He kills them in order to get what he wants – the scent. He is accused of the murders and sentenced to death. But he anoints himself with a drop of the fragrance he has made – a mixture of the essential oils of different girls – and the moment he steps of the square where a mob has gathered to watch; everyone present is mesmerized with Greneuille. Even the father of one of the girls grabs Greneuille and forgives him everything. But this is not what Jean-Baptist dreams of. He is so disgusted with human nature that as soon as possible he leaves the town. When he reaches the next small village he anoints himself with the rest of the perfume and leaves himself being torn literally by knives, nails and stones – out of sheer love. Is that what a dream is? A false statement, a raisin drying in the sun?

A dream should be a magnificent opulent tremendous stupendous gargantuan bedazzlement. It should be earthy and controlled, and invigorating and exhilarating. It makes people travel, it makes them stable. It points out the right paths and the wrong paths. It is a heavy burden of sweetness and sheer joy. It is the Moon which makes people ware-wolves; it is the Sun which kills vampires. It is a harmoniously ravishing intoxication and a harsh pungency. It can be here, there and everywhere. But what is for sure – it will always be with people, because they love flying and falling.

1 Year with Leica M9 - Retrospective; and about Berlin

Exactly one year ago to this day, I was lucky enough to meet Guido Steenkamp who just a week ago opened an exhibition in Berlin together with other street photographers from Seconds2Real (the Leica Camera Blog reviewed the exhibition with an interview). He was selling his M9, preferring his analog Leica for his work and I was happy to take the digital one from his hands. With just about 9,085 shutter actuations back then, I considered it practically new. Until then, my trusty M8 was doing a great job and honestly for the life of me I cannot remember why I was so much craving the M9 instead. 

But I did and I was saving my pennies and nickles, sold my M8, and negotiated a price of the M9 and worked for me. And I haven't looked back. I met Guido - I was lucky to have been travelling to Berlin around that time so we met personally and I immediately (and very impatiently) attached the lens I had at that time (a Voigtländer Nokton 35mm f1.4 - not a bad lens but certainly with shortcomings) and I took several pictures the next couple of days in Berlin. I could immediately see the improvement of the IR-filtering, I could see what a 35 mm lens actually does to pictures (full-frame) and I could not hear the metalic sound that the M8 made when it shutter clicked (the M9 has a softer sound). I loved the character of the black paint (the bottom plate was starting to show the brass underneath), I loved the custom-installed black Leica logo (the original is supposed to be red) and the blackened "M9" (originally supposed to be white), and I loved the tremendous resolution (18MP from the 10MP the M8 provided).

A year later, I still feel the same about the camera technicalities. But I have certainly come to understand it better. I can appreciate its colors, I can appreciate its speed, I can appreciate its solid feel and its minimalist elegance. But that's not really what it makes it special - it is a simple thing really - that it is always with me.

Before that, I didn't carry a camera with me all the time. I missed moments. I missed opportunities. And I missed memories. Now, I can rely on always having that camera, and never missing those moments. I go back, just a year with it, but more than 33,000 pictures, and I remember every one of those moments as if it was a minute ago. Because it was - it is part of me now, it is part of what defines me, the experiences I've had and the people who continue to define me. 

And sure, an M8 or even a film camera, might have done the same for me (I did use to carry the M8 with me everywhere as well). And the lenses are indeed stupendous and their interaction with the rest of the system is unmatched (and I have went through a number of lenses including rare pieces of glass such as the Canon TV f0.95 50 mm lens, the temperamental Leica Summilux f1.4 75 mm, the low-maintenance Leica Summicron C f2.0 40 mm, and many others). You know that you are really thinking about the photographic process when gear becomes just the extension of what you do: jf you have only the 90 mm lens, you'd still take that street photograph; if you have only the wide-angeled 24 mm lens, you'd still take that portrait shot.

Because it is not the gear that makes me look to the world with curious eyes but the mindset, the expectation, the curiosity, and the desire to be part of that world around.

'nough about that. Berlin! Ah, Berlin! The reason why I love Berlin so much is the fact that it reminds me so much in some of its  characteristics to Sofia - like the flowers being sold at the bus/tram/underground stations. This is something I remember from my childhood as the characteristic of those stations - those days that I would need to be buying flowers for a teacher or just for my mum and the comfort of always knowing that they would be available and I wouldn't need to get out of my way to actually get them. 

Or there are the building: old, big, made to accommodate a lot of people. True that some of them are falling apart and some underground stations feel scarily much like a morgue. But the feeling of growing up in a similar environment makes me almost automatically feel at home (and yes, I can see the irony of this).

And the light - oh the light is different here. The sun shines the same way of course but you've got the glass buildings - tall and precise. The Sun is looking into them asking "who is the prettiest one of them?" And they all look at the sun for warmth! 

And then our hearts warm up - not only because of the light, not only because of the Parisian feel to all this, not because of the French accordion music that has become a cliche (cliches are there for a reason and I love them), not only because everyone is out with a smile, not only because the rising moon was so big and beautiful between the big glass buildings, not only because of the dance moves I would make from time to time. Because when we feel so happy, we need to share it - to pick up the phone and call old friends, talk to strangers, smile to everyone, and for once play the tourist. And then there are those random meetings that are never random. Meeting an old friend out of the blue on the streets of Berlin and making new friends out of acquaintances and out of strangers. 

One of the very first pictures I took with this camera.

And the same place - a week less than a year after.

Below are some of the pictures I took in Berlin when I visited the exhibition of Seconds2Real in Berlin.

And some street shots from Berlin:

RIP Steve Jobs 1955-2011

When I sat down writing last night, a quote from Steve jobs came to mind as one of the first associations to the passion of the street musicians - "everybody loves music". Little did I know the significance of that association exactly last night on the 5th October 2011. He was right. And he knew why it was essential to stay hungry and to stay foolish. Just like those kids did. And if my days start with those "why"- and "meaning of life"- questions, I know that there is a reason - to make a dent in the universe. RIP Steve Jobs. The Apple logo on the back of my MacBook will always be lit for you!