Reflecting On Reflections | Monomad Challenge

The sweet sin of looking back. It usually goes one of two ways. Either you appreciate where you came from, and what giant steps you had to take, and how incredible it is that now you're here, after all this walking; or you hate everything about it, and feel ashamed of how tiny the distance seems to your judgmental eyes, or even disgusted, if it feels like you’ve gone backwards. Sometimes it's both, somehow, at the same time, or one after another. An endless cycle of love and hate. A pendulum with your mood tied to it, uplifting and upsetting you constantly. Filling you up with hope, then immediately draining you out.

In light of my temporary switch back to digital, trying to get used to the new system - I've decided to look for some inspiration in my archive. Surprisingly enough, going through my stuff, I realized that exactly two years ago I was working on a reflections project. I'd travel via a train to Tel-Aviv once a week, and walk the same bunch of neighborhoods in the south side of the city, specifically those who were full of small businesses (active or still under construction), bars and hotel lobbies that had all these huge reflective windows. Back then my fear of photographing humans - "friendly" or "foe" - was even worse than it is today, and so the way I worked around it was to shoot them through windows, which honestly is a perfect solution.

You probably all know about it better than I do. It's a great two-birds-one-stone fix, because not only does it let you shoot however you want without crossing anyones boundaries - it also gives you that nice double/triple exposure effect, which adds so much more weight to the already chaotic scenes.

It was really nice to observe my past work, and to reflect (hehe) on it. One big change I immediately noticed was in the way I used to post-process my images back then versus today. I had to re-edit all of these pictures before posting them here, because they were really over-cooked. back then, I used to maximize the contrast, crop the images into all kinds of different aspect ratios, and just generally take them out of proportion (maybe to compensate for something that felt missing). It's truly inspiring to witness this change in myself - how today my editing is so much more simplistic and minimal, trying to keep the photos as close to their "original" look.

But at the same time (a pendulum, like I said) I also noticed some jealousy rising up from deep inside. A longing for much simpler, more relaxed days. I didn't care as much about how clean the compositions were back then. If the scene was chaotic, then I would let it be exactly that, and not force some sense into it. There is something looser in these photos. I was probably less obsessive about not getting it wrong, and more focused on getting it right, and it's definitely something I want to bring back to the present day. To loosen up the camera I'm holding. To shift down at least one gear. To take more chances, and also definitely - to photograph more people like that, even if it feels like cheating.

This is an entry post for the #monomad challenge curated by @monochromes

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