Struggling again

Creativity has its highs and lows. Like life, like the transparency of thought and soul. These past few weeks have been low on energy to go out and photograph, using the slightest obstacle as an excuse to avoid taking the camera out of the bag. Sometimes I think it’s because I live on an essentially tourist island, where you either photograph the same subjects over and over or switch focus to nature and landscape shots. Not that I dislike the genre, but the fleeting shot, the scene composed only by sight, and urban life is what makes me feel alive. Yet that’s no excuse. There are street photographers whose life's work consists of photos from a water park, others who live within their own little islands inside the city. When we want to, we do.

That was the main reason I forced myself to go out this morning. Just walking along the beach, once in each direction, trying to see something. I tried to see in black and white, a place where I seek refuge when I don’t want to think too much about light and colours. Rocks, again pebbles, begging for contrast and balance at the same time.

Then I saw a pocket of light near Cabo Girão. I tried to capture it and keep the morning light’s shadows as dark as I saw them, using the coastline as a guide to the headland. The clouds were low, as an autumn morning should be.

Next, someone was having coffee by the beach, but looking at their phone instead of the waves right in front of him. A new normal, to paraphrase the cliché. The dependency on dopamine will be a new challenge, and I speak against myself as well. I admit my dependence on that little device, as if it were a window to the world, but in reality, it only deceives and misleads.

Then came a little colour. The morning light, now softened by a cloud, showed itself in yellowish and pastel tones. A woman was running along the sand in the distance, perhaps part of a routine, but I tried to draw attention to her presence by placing her on a strong line of composition. A mistake, as I later realised, since the stones steal much of her spotlight. Learning from mistakes is necessary.

Finally, as I was leaving, two figures crossed in front of me, hand in hand, heading toward the pebbles. They were dressed for a swim in the sea, but the rocks are unforgiving, and balance was lost. They had to support each other, on the stones as in life, as they made their way to the sea.