Beyond the Familiar: Discovering Unknown Worlds
What happens when you leave everything you know behind to step into the unknown?
For me, becoming a photographer has been exactly that. It has transformed my life and mindset in more ways than I can count. In this blog post, I reflect on how transitioning from corporate management to photography has reshaped my worldview.
We all see our own lives as the norm, the default, the standard, and the measure of everything else. Through tweaks and adjustments, we try to make the most of the framework we define as LIFE, while ensuring that these changes don’t push us beyond the familiar boundaries of our mental comfort. We might buy a new kitchen, land a better job, or even move to another country. Yet, for the most part, our core foundation and our definition of normality remain unchanged.
And yet, other people's norm may feel foreign to us, so distant that we can hardly imagine ourselves living such a life. Sometimes, we seek it out as a holiday destination or an exotic retreat, but we rarely consider that their way of life is just as normal to them as ours is to us.
That was true for me as well.
I always felt like a man of the world, believing there was nowhere I couldn’t be or live. And indeed, throughout my life, I moved from one country to another, treating each place as a new adventure. I felt as if I were in a constant state of change, failing to realize that I was merely changing backdrops. At my core, I remained an executive, an achiever, and a city dweller, and that identity stayed with me wherever I went, no matter what I did.
Then, I left it all behind to become a nature photographer.
At first, I was overwhelmed by the unpredictability of my new life and the insignificance of time. Now, weather and light dictate my schedule. Success became unpredictable and largely undefined. I can sit for hours, waiting for a bird to appear or an insect to move, and often, I return with nothing to show for it whatsoever.
And yet, with or without photos, I keep discovering unknown worlds and getting to know new places and people I never had the chance to meet before. Where and when in the past, for instance, could I have met someone whose dream was to become a postman or a cook in a kebab outlet? My mindset, and with it my worldview, had to twist, shift, and adapt.
This blog post features the first set of images in a series of posts that demonstrate the transformation my perspective has undergone. It is aimed at my fellow big-city dwellers, offering a glimpse into a very different way of life, a way of life that, for those who live it, is the norm. And to them, our lives might look like a waking nightmare.
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