Time flies. Days are rapidly merging one into another, month after month, year after year. Fortunately, photography can permanently freeze some moments in that constant flow. Here are some preserved ice bits of my ordinary life from the summer of 2014.
2014 was a much better year for me than this current one. Fewer boring chores, more art & fun. Less indoor, more outdoor. And even the world at large looked like a considerably less messed-up place, as far as I can remember.
The wall shown in this opening picture is situated near the sea, not far from the village of Liznjan, about five or six kilometers from where I live. It may look like the gate is leading to some house, villa, or a hotel, but ...
...but nope, there is only the wild coastal meadow behind that gate, and behind the meadow, there is the rugged coast and the fragrant blue sea.
More than a decade before these photographs were taken, some rich dude tried to place a big, luxurious house in that seaside place. He built two stretches of a long wall and put a solid iron gate between them, but when it came time to build a house, it turned out that his paperwork and permits had been obtained or bought illegally, through a nice bribe to some small local politicians, and so now...
...this surreal gateway to heaven is all that remains.
Posing in these shots is a friend whom I have not seen since those funny days in 2014.
This is the same friend, on the rocks by the sea this time.
In this shot, he resembles a character from some medieval wall paintings in a church or cathedral.
The difference between a cape and a large beach towel isn't as big as one might think.
At that time, he had a relatively hazardous job in the shipyard, so he had to wear this mask at work.
Behind the wall, not far from the gate, there is a dead old tree. In this set of four photographs, you can see my friend posing among the remains of the amputated branches.
Here you can see me posing there.
Yep, that's me again...
...on the same deceased tree.
Can't tell you exactly what tree this is, but...
...but if I had to guess...
...I'd say...
...it's a Pyrus spinosa...
...a wild pear species...
...that sucsesfully grows in dry environments, in poor, calcareous soils...
...often very close to the sea.
That dead pear didn't look čike much at first sight, but...
...but it ended up being a great pedestal for a friend.
That's me again, on the same litlle tree.
Pyrus spinosa can grow as a fairly large shrub or a small tree.
Its fruits are edible.
These wild pears are edible when they look rotten.
A towel and a mask can give a nice SyFy touch to a portrait.
This is me...
...on the stretch of coastline about a kilometer from the wall, the gate, the tree, and other things shown in previous photographs. I found some relatively usable garbage in the beach litter, and with that in hand, I started yelling some gibberish to the sea.
The sea didn't bother answering, nor did it react in any other way.
The waves in these photographs weren't there as a consequence of my behaviour.
I know, it is hard to believe, but most of the time the universe doesn't give a shit about what we are saying, no matter how loud we are. In this and the following nine photographs ...
...you can see another friend who was there with me.
Her communication with the sea was more contemplative. Probably a bit deeper as well.
The litlle dog called Bepina was also there. Bepina died a few years ago.
Sometimes time is wingless. It's fast, but it doesn't fly. Time is, sometimes, a universal eraser that passes uninvited over things we want to keep forever.
When the shots of this tryptich were taken, I was alone in the recently plowed fields in the same seaside area.
Here you can see one of the hay bales I came across further down the dusty road, and in the following two photographs...
...I'm doing some trendy planking on the hay. Back then, in 2014, I had a feeling that this planking thing would become an Olympic sport very soon.
The planking phenomenon was short-lived, as far as I know. Haven't seen anybody posting such photos on social media lately, and by lately, I mean in the last ten years or so.
I took plenty of selfies in 2014.
Unlike planking, the selfie phenomenon is as popular today as it was back then. Some crap never dies.
I used to put all kinds of stuff on my head for my Facebook selfies...
...and I changed my profile picture very often.
Give people social media, and you'll soon see a worldwide festival of conformity.
It is pretty obvious that Web 3 won't change that. Just take a good, honest look at things here on Hive.
From that period in 2014, I also have quite a few silly photographs of me dressed silly in an apartment of a friend that lives in an old house on the outskirts of the city.
It's a cool litlle apartment that emanates an air of uniqueness and creativity.
You can always find cool, photogenic stuff there.
Old clothes, old books, old toys. Even an old telephone, the one you can see in the picture above.
The place also has a great, old-fashioned mirror for selfies.
This set of four photographs, taken in the same seaside area that started the post, shows a person that's me skipping along the dusty road.
I took a bit of LSD, and while driving slowly through a dream that led me across the plowed fields and along the coastline, I came across myself dancing under the thick clouds of an unusually overcast summer day.
A bit later, on the same trip, I photographed my feet near a desiccated carcass of a small crab...
...and this beautiful butterfly. The scientific name of the species is Gonepteryx rhamni.
This mysterious figure was photographed in my living room.
Yep, that's me again.
The room still looks the same, but the atmosphere is quite different now. Not too bad, really, but less playful for sure.
I didn't think about it that way back then, but some kind of spontaneous, lighthearted theater was going on most of the time in my life in those days.
I'm posing with Bepina in this set of five consecutive shots.
I think I'll try to find some things I'm wearing in these photographs later today.
In this animated tryptich, you can see me posing in a mirror of a friend who lives in a house situated near the industrial part of the city.
In this and the following six photographs...
...that friend is eating a nectarine.
This is the friend from the beginning of this post.
The landscape is the same, too.
In this shot, he's posing in my kitchen.
And that's it. This post from the past ends here. Hope you had some fun with it. As always here on Hive, the photographs are my work.