Freedom

Freedom of choice. Something we like to talk about, something the westerners take for granted, something we still don't really have.

How free are you? Most of us would think about how we get to choose any career that we want, get a partner of our choice, we can travel and even choose the country we live in. But are we really as free as we believe?

The choices we make are hardly ever just ours. We tend to choose things we know or that are easily acceptable by the surrounding culture, our preferences are shaped by the places where we grew up and by the people who have played significant roles in our lives. We choose things because we are scared of the alternative or we convinced ourselves that our actions were rational and well thought through. But that's hardly ever true.

As much as I love the world we live in, I also see how wrong we got with some of the most important aspects of our lives. Let's look at career and education for example. Most of us are encouraged to choose their profession when they are young. We ask 5 year old what they want to become when they grow up, we urge teenagers to choose subjects at school that are most likely to land them the job they committed to at the age of 9. We like consistency and labels and we impose them on everyone else from their early beginnings. I've been always interested in many things and struggled when my parents and teachers tried to convince me to focus on one thing and excell in it. Because that's what people do, that's the requirement of the western success. To be the best at something. Not be fairly good in many things as long as you enjoy yourself, no, we want perfection. If a child likes to play piano, they will become a pianist, we will make him or her practice etiudes over and over again until they master them and if the kid is not enjoying it, it's because they don't understand the need for practice and they will thank us one day, when they've already become the next Beethoven. But maybe, just maybe, we should let some things stay fun?

I work full-time and after work I go to yoga, bellydance, dancehall, Spanish and French classes, read about photography, psychology and volunteer in a charity. I do it because I genuinely enjoy all these things. I didn't decide to sign up for them because I thought that it was a practical thing to do or because I was hoping that one day I will be able to wrap by leg around my neck or be the next Robert Capa. I don't need to be the best in either of them. What matters is that I'm doing something I enjoy and that I know that at the end of a long day at work I get to be myself, do something that is just for my own sake. It gives me the sense of balance, it means that my work or relationship doesn't define me. I'm happy doing these things because they're part of my element, they come to me naturally and it feels like everything is falling in the right place where I engage in these activities. Why should I give it up and focus on one, maybe two of them and strive for perfection? Will it make me happy? I doubt it.

Of course, there are many people out there who focus on only one of their passions and put all their energy into it, maybe for them there has always been just that one passion and they can't image life without it. If that's what they genuinely like and they do it because when they don't, it feels like a piece of them is missing, then I am really happy that they found their calling. I do believe that very often their devotion leads the to the top. However, in my opinion,  it is a fundamental error in our thinking and education to assume that people have only a certain talent, that you are either a humanist or a scientist, that if you like maths then you shouldn't excell in English literature. It's a very confined view on human abilities and potential.

It is also true for intelligence, we tend to see ourselves as somewhere on a scale, if we scored low in an IQ test we would start thinking that we are not as intelligent as we wanted to be and that as unfortunate as it is, there is nothing we can do about it. But who said so? Scientists? They've been wrong many times, they are only humans and while some experiments indicate one thing, there are usually a few that completely contradict it. But media and teachers like consistency so unless you start digging into the topic yourself you will be usually presented with just one side of the coin.

I was to focus on my studies, to become a psychologist. Then reality came along and since it's been difficult to find a job within my field, I am now expected to devote my life to my career. Just for the next few years that is, because eventually my life is to focus on the family. But even if you love your job and family, there always needs to be something that is just yours, that you like to do and perhaps have ability to do quite well. We don't need to follow the one role the society, family or friends have prepared for us. If you want true freedom, develop yourself in something that you enjoy doing and do it just for you, for the sheer joy of doing it. Thinking about living far away from anyone you currently know and having unlimited resources. If that was the case, what would you do? What do you REALLY enjoy doing, not what you were told you like, not what you were lead to believe is cool or useful.  Don't think only about the things that you are good at, if there is such thing and you love it, go for it, but if you learnt to do something really well but never really enjoyed it, then what's the point? Once you understand what constitutes your element, make sure you introduce it back into your life, sign up for the classes or find people with similar interest, just do something about it. And when you do, notice how nice it feels to choose to be yourself, to live your life not according to other people's standards and wishes, but to follow your own path. The majority is not always right.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bdOTUocn5w

It's crazy how many doors can be opened with enthusiasm and belief.

I finally decided to stop talking about how much I love photography and start doing something to back it up. Sure, I take photos from my travels and make some pseudo-artistic attempts once in a while, but that will never take me where I want to be. And where is that? Becoming a travel journalist and a photographer. Not necessarily as a profession. As long I can do it as my hobby and have a few people who gain something from it, I'm good. For now I just want to have some means of conveying emotions encountered during my journeys, a complementary tool for telling a story.

I truly believe that once you decide something, once you become certain that now is the moment to reach for your dreams, things start coming together, the everyday events turn into pieces of a puzzle that fit perfectly together and the further down you go, the clearer and bigger the picture becomes. I found my first puzzle piece on a Friday. 25th January 2013.  His name was Bart Pogoda.

Before leaving for work on the Friday morning, I decided to check the blog of Bart Pogoda, one of the most significant names in polish travel photography. A friend of mine mentioned Bart during our conversation about Poland's photographers and I wanted to see his talent with my own eyes. Bart's blog http://bartpogoda.net/  was not exactly what I expected. Instead of a fancy design and elements of self-promotion taking over the actual artistic content, Bart's blog was genuine. The first impression that I got of its author was that he's just a normal guy, whose photography skills come from sensitivity to world and curiosity, not an inflamed ego and need for recognition. I immediately liked Mr.Pogoda.

One of the things that I find so interesting about Bart's photography is the subject of his photographs. Bart does not provide his audience with the predictable. Most photographers take colourful pictures of women in saris when they go to India, smiling dancers in Cuba and blooming cherry trees in Japan. This is how Bart sees these places:

I was admiring the photographs when suddenly, I got one of those ideas that won't leave you alone until they get realized. My idea wanted me  to write about Bart and his career. So I found his contact details and sent him an email asking if he minds me mentioning him in my blog. Since he agreed, I thought I would push my luck a bit further and asked if I could interview him. To my astonishment he said yes. So, ladies and gentlemen, I give you Bart Pogoda. Enjoy.

- Tell me about the beginnings of your adventure with photography. Can you remember the first time that you  were holding a camera in your hands? When did photography become something more than just making memories immortal?

B.P:  I remember smiena- an old soviet camera which I got for my 12th or 13th birthday. Then for a long time there was nothing- until in the second year of high school I became an owner of praktica with a 50 mm. lens. Those were the early years of high school and like most of my peers I was looking for tools for self-realisation. A few experiments, a friend helping me develop the negative and make copies of the black and white AGFA material. Nothing more than curiosity and experimenting.  The beginnings were promising- it turned out that the camera takes good photos - they were clear and had the depth of field. Black and white photographs, darkroom, the chemicals, boos about photography and a whole lot of things that every photo-amateur  is interested it. Only later on I realized that you should not focus on the technical aspects but rather concentrate on the photography as a tool for expressing yourself. 2 or 3 years later I started to travel.  

I started taking smiena to my first European hitch-hiking trips, then Balkans and Turkey. Then there was minolta, canon and around 1998 I started getting into this for good. A camera was a travel companion, a notebook, and finally a working tool.

From each trip I have been brining more and more photos and with time I noticed that they evoke positive reactions in those who were looking at them. Thanks to happy coincidences, people I met, my own work and determination I finally started making my dream come true. Photography and writing (alongside blogging) were building my notion of being on the road. Working equals bread, but work is also a large part of life and you ought to love it, or at least like it. I made a choice-probably not a very wise one, against tradition and polish mentality- but there are various ways that can lead to your destination. 


- Reading your blog it's impossible not to be impressed by how many journeys you've been on. Is there a particularly special one?

B.P:  The one that is still ahead of me <smiles>   I think the one that meant the most to me is the trip around the Americas (2001-2002) which re-defined my life. That's when my blog started and thanks to the photos and posts that I was uploading I gained popularity which later on proved to help my work as a photographer. 


- Journeys always bring along some amazing but sometimes also terrifying experiences. Is there a particular event that stands out from your travel memories? 

On my last evening in Santiago I sat for a moment in a park, something I have never done before due to the presence of jineteros and jineteras (they're homeless or really poor people receiving the bare social minimum from the government and aiming at getting out of a foreigner anything they possibly can). I sat on a bench dreaking something that resembled fanta. Five minutes later I was accompanied by Eco and his friend- rastafari, or should I rather say "wannabe" rastafari. The conversation kept on going- travels, marijuana, Marley, music, girls- the guys keep on spinning the conversation and then they take out an empty pastic bottle and off we go, looking for some cheap rum. We go to people's houses, we greet numbers of people, knucle-knucle, ya man, cool and stuff...

Another hour is passing and I am starting to get lost in who is whom in this show. There come the police who check the IDs of the guys with dreadlocks, I seem to be invisible to them. Eco tells me they always need to have IDs on them, police stops them each day. Guys get me to give them some change for food and another bottle of rum (it's no cost for me and I'm curious what's going to happen next). We leave the centre and get to dark slums. Concrete, clay, bushes, a few lampposts, music from each house in front of which sit black men in the blue glow cast by blakcandwhite TVs. New people show up and Eco introduces me to a friend he lives with (in a cardboard shack). I also meet his mum and friend called Luceria or something of the sort. We wander down the strets talking about Haile Sellasie, Fidel, Marley, Che, politics. 

It's time to go and suddenly I realize my situation- I have no clue where I am or how to get home, besides, I am in the slums of Cuba's largest city, far away from the security levels of Varadero and its resorts for German tourists.  Still, I say bye to the guys who show me the road to the centre. It's not too bad, after just five minutes I know where I am. I approach a woman sitting outside of a house to make sure that I'm going the right way. "Para el centro? A la izquierda, si? ". The woman nodds her head and all of a sudden the smile on her face turns into a wild scream. I turn immediaty and see two rusty machetes, half a meter long, and I can feel something pulling me back. Two guys are pulling my backpack, trying to cut off the stripes.  Adrenaline kicks in and I know that my camera and wallet are there. A woman's screams attract people and the intruders run away. I still don't know how I came of out of it without having my head chopped off. An elderly couple offer to protect me and walk to the centre. Phew...I get home ok and go to sleep. I spent the night dreaming of knives, machetes, chicken, jungle, dark faces with sparkling eyes. All of it accompanied by the sound of African drums.