A Great Creative Awakening

My photographs are, through one lens, merely data written onto a digital recording device. If you change the lens through which you view them, you might see that they are the expressions of my true self, and the responses of my soul to the, all too often, unseen beauty of this great earth on which I miraculously find myself walking.

This journey towards a life of creativity has been the greatest awakening to the miracle that we call life. The very act of creating art in this way has forced me to begin living more consciously. I have spent the past six-and-a-half years paying attention; to subtle nuances within the landscape, to changes in colour and intensity of light, and, ultimately, to myself, as my relationship with the external landscape mirrors that of my relationship with the landscape within.

The pursuit of art, coinciding with my pursuit of Self, has elevated my life significantly. Picking up the camera marked something of a rebirth. I felt as though I was learning to see all over again; walking with renewed wonder and a rejuvenated spirit which led to the rediscovery of my curious, childlike self - a version of me that I had long forgotten, and, at times, abandoned through episodes of trauma, years of social conditioning, and my unconscious choices to follow the path of the masses.

My earliest life experiences forged me into the artist that I am today, as I, through circumstances far beyond my own control, became incredibly receptive to stimuli. It is this receptivity to light, sound, colour, and texture, as well as my own internal emotional state that is reactive to the external landscape, that makes my creativity possible. Over the past few years, I have often heard the word ‘talented’ branded around by admirers of my work, and, although I am, of course, eternally grateful for any recognition and praise that I receive along this path that I walk, I find myself questioning whether this wellspring of creativity that I have accessed is a talent or merely a response under the Law of Polarity. Perhaps it is that my earliest years were so out of control that I now seek sanctuary in Nature and such, often obsessive, control over my chosen forms of art - fixating on creating the ‘perfect’ photograph, and consciously weaving words into structured writings and poetry as I seek to make sense of my own, as well as our collective, existence.

It is with the greatest amount of belief in my internal guide - the often forgotten sixth sense of intuition, or, perhaps, as my mother would have once described to a younger version of me, the Holy Spirit - that I have journeyed by moonlight to the source of my deepest pain to retrieve my sensitive soul.

For many years, I became numb and unreceptive to stimuli, suppressing my gifts and caging my deeper self as I tried desperately to fit in in this world. I spent most of my waking hours escaping into fantasy worlds through computer games, drinking myself into states of unconscious blackouts and occasionally using other substances as I often self-sacrificed and forced myself to go to parties and events that I didn’t want to attend. When I reflect upon drunken emotional outbursts and frequent feelings of discomfort as I sat and tried to involve myself in surface-level conversation that was bouncing rapidly from one person to the next in a crowded room, I realise that my soul was trying to get my attention throughout it all.

Through my interactions with the natural world, I have been calling back the energy that I had unconsciously given away throughout my earlier years, reclaiming my sovereignty as a human being here upon this rock. Through this pursuit of art, I have forged for myself the greatest sense of purpose - something that had evaded me throughout prior years. By picking up the camera and pen, I prized opened a door that had been locked for over two decades, and the soft, mornings’ sunlight entered the cold, dark room in which my creative self rested.

There often exists two versions of the human being - one that it thinks it is and limits itself to based upon its’ fears, beliefs, the projections of others, and societies expectations, and the one that exists beyond that version - the one that it often dreams of becoming. These photographs, and accompanying essays are representative of the conscious choices that I made throughout my mid-twenties; to never let my past define me, and to wake up one day and unshackle myself so that I could begin chasing my own dream, writing a story for the world of tomorrow along the way.