Doubt and Doubt
Notes / 24 Jun, 2026, Malaga
Deliberate slowdown of still life shots creates a space that exists solely between myself and the camera. Hard to verbalize the emotion that happens when there is no characters inside the frame to share it with. With time the word became clear: it was doubt.
A process built fundamentally on doubt is a priori difficult for the brain to accept as something pleasant. Every time stepping out onto the street, there is no idea what to look for, merely seeking a foothold. A visual hook where a trigger exists for the thoughts currently drifting through. Because of this, the vast majority of internal resources are spent on self-reflection, rather than on calculating the frame or perfecting the composition. The motivation is driven by actively scanning the environment in search of a shot. Through adaption of new visual practice, I began spending more energy on internal observations, leaving my eyes to simply catch whatever they naturally snagged onto. Imprint remains of that deep-seated need to search. The visuals will come. This imprint evolves through the practice of the frames already captured, and through the sheer volume of time already invested into the emotion of the topic.
The greatest progress in this case lay not in the final images obtained, but in the capacity to endure doubt, to inhabit it completely during the act of shooting, and to accept uncertainty as a rewarding part of the process. Intentionally hunting for visual metaphors that match internal state usually only accelerates irritability. The key is to relinquish control, to allow to exist alongside the camera in a state of "You don't know what You are photographing".
More images reveal themselves precisely when openness to the unknown remains. The internal state simply layers itself onto new objects. A good indicator at the end of the day is a delusional confidence that things are in place, both in terms of progression in this craft and future quests ahead.
Andrii