I am in Kiev, Ukraine, where I got a chance to rest after intense work for ’The Orientalist'. The last 40-something days have been the most active in my photography career. Orchestrating shoots in 4 countries, involving dozens of dancers and musicians, a number of locations and very different concepts proved to be both challenging and absurdly fun. I am half-way into my trip to Europe and I thought it would be good to look back into what has happened so far and give a general feel of what’s going on in the project.
I’ve photographed some of the most iconic bellydancers in the world for the series, world-class musicians, beautiful locations in Bulgaria, Cyprus and Canada, but timing never seemed to be right to write about all this. I realized I’ve been postponing writing because things were happening too fast for me to keep up and write properly. This reminded me of a great quote by author Tim Ferriss:
“For all of the most important things, the timing always sucks. Waiting for a good time to quit your job? The stars will never align and the traffic lights of life will never all be green at the same time. The universe doesn't conspire against you, but it doesn't go out of its way to line up the pins either. Conditions are never perfect. "Someday" is a disease that will take your dreams to the grave with you. Pro and con lists are just as bad. If it's important to you and you want to do it "eventually," just do it and correct course along the way.”
‘The Orientalist’ was in my ‘someday’ pile for a long time. Since I actually committed to doing it, the project has been happening at a very fast pace, almost with a life of its own. Writing about it has been, in a way, on my current ‘someday’ resistance pattern. When I saw the behind-the-scenes photo in this post, vast sea, how far I had gone to make this vision come true, the awareness of this disease called ‘someday’ hit me hard. I’ve been doing my photography and all the creative and technical things that come with it, but I haven’t been telling tales of the making of this project. The reminder that all of this is important, at least in the micro-cosmos of creating these images, is one of lessons I learned by fighting ‘someday’. On the next post, onwards with new tales.
Yesterday I released a second solo episode for the new season of the Wanderings Podcast. I am really happy to share insights into my path of becoming an artist, a traveler, a small business owner in a digital landscape, and I hope some lessons of that journey can be useful to you.