I'll start with something that happened to me, and that I found so inspiring that it's impossible for me not to mention it... Over the weekend I watched Dennis Villeneuve's Blade Runner 2049, and honestly that movie upset me too much. It made me think too much. It was a tremendous shocker... A film that explores the deepest thoughts. As if we were talking about a personal path towards our own value as individuals. But let's get down to business, shall we? After seeing what I saw, I am left with the idea of absurdity. I mean, what is supposed to make us feel important, could very well be a misinterpretation of reality and nature? A bit sad, isn't it?
During that afternoon I had to go for a walk. I didn't think about it. Nor did I go out with the idea of exercising or clearing my mind. This time it was the opposite. I needed to reconnect with my deepest thoughts, and provoke certain emotions that I had kept deep inside me. And, in a week so full of awards and cinematography everywhere, I think it is worth highlighting the good influence that cinema still has on human beings...
Now, what did I find on that tense, internally troubling, and not at all planned walk? Honestly, I still don't quite know.... What I do know is that it helped me to leave behind (definitely) some things that didn't add up to me too much. .... Like anxiety, fear and above all, a lot of guilt that I had accumulated throughout my life; and because of some experiences. Then, while I was walking, I took some pictures, like the one of the Ford Sierra with the Foo Fighters sticker and I decided that I had to link several elements in order to get rid of that tension.
Melancholy, some anger, small traumas and above all, the acceptance (resignation) of the passing of time, and what I have done with it; both as a woman and as an individual.... In that sense, the fact of having no direction helped me immensely to continue with my small but promising internal debate; and to try to have a brief but forceful "conversation" with myself that I had delayed too long in carrying out. All this I describe, while I was silent, I was on the street and my countenance seemed unchanging. I walk, think and take pictures....
I can't pass up contemplation. Our lives, and how we occupy our time, mainly from Monday to Saturday makes it almost impossible to stop and analyze our existence. Honestly, it bothers me to no end that we have normalized toxic habits. The accumulation of so much crap is not positive, nor does it add up to anything. In the last century, we left behind the sexual division of human problems; in this new historical moment we are living, it would seem that our goal in life would be to survive coin by coin; hour by hour; one day at a time without expecting too much.
Foo Fighters has a song titled "Time Like These". It's a love song, but in the moment of my existentialist contemplation I came across a sticker on a car that I couldn't help but photograph Why am I telling this? Because it's perfect for me to describe what I was feeling in the moment of total abstraction. Believe me when I tell you, I needed a day like this.... It makes me more human; to live and feel that humanity.
The influence of good cinema led me to walk. Then, that fact to release tension and issues that didn't add up for me anymore. Finally, I ended up feeling better; and produced the photographs (of which I am proud) that are in this small but honest story within this post.... Sometimes, and only sometimes, things seem to be intertwined. Or at least, that's how I see it. I don't know if it will be for better or for worse, but what I am sure of, is that the unexpected (like getting inspiration through reflection) can be too unforgettable: like that beautiful but conflicted afternoon when I went for a "walk"...
