Everything Changes. Everything Stays the same.

You’ll find these reflections have the tendency to mimic the randomness of life so if you’ve stumbled upon them, I hope you can delve in and find a some likeness among these random reflections.

I love to be in the moment. I also love to examine, inquire and reflect. I do so when I’m inspired, as might an artist, so it’s pretty disorderly. This tracks with with my practice of photography: rarely I feel I can create a shot from nothing. But if I notice something present from a classic or novel perspective, it’s so much more real and worthy of appreciation. It’s both familiar and new. It’s spontaneous and natural. It also comes from without, independent of the creations of my own mind and imagination. And in capturing them, these images become memories, but not to the fullest: many of them are, in fact, kind distractions that still remind me of a time when I was, or maybe wasn’t, living my best life.

Many of these images are now stills, pinned on a wall opposite me where I work from home at a job that is honestly not my dream. But that’s a lesson I’ve learned: most of us rarely have the chance to live what we could call our ‘dream’. For me, it’s because there’s a part of my life I value more than my occupation. In this way, the beauty is that photography remains a love, not an obligation.

Another lesson from being behind the camera is that the world does, and will, go on without us. So how could it not be a blessing to be included in this life, able, by the possession of human faculties, to discern what’s happening around us and to think upon them, admire them and even take part in them? I take photos when the moment presents itself, but for how long will I be able? Yet I’m still blessed, If I’m being honest. I’ve witnessed the sun set from tropical islands and from snowy tundra; set my feet on the tops of volcanoes and in the seas; made my own food and drink and sampled masterpieces from countries different than my own, outside my means; walked paths trod by paupers and gods; spent time in the wilderness of true creation and offered sacrifice in the largest man made cathedrals on earth; been entrusted with the darkest desires and secrets of fellow human beings only to witness them soar far above them. Dare I say I’m not blessed, having been witness to life in all these circumstances?

When once confronted with the question of how I dealt with culture shock on the few travels I’ve made to some different parts of the world, I answered with the same thought I realized some time before: it’s never the differences across place, language or custom but the similarities that ring most clearly. Things change but things stay the same.