the end

It is Saturday early morning, briefly after I took my latest photograph of this week, when I wanted to write this.

All pros has it’s cons. Every do’s has it’s don’ts. Each advantage has it’s disadvantage. For every opinion I shed there is an opposite reaction. I take my photography serious, but 125tel‘s last week’s comment had me thinking. Maybe I should take it more light weighted.

With my PAD-project I noticed that I photograph subconsciously, but every time a new week starts I worry about the next photograph for that week. When each week the first day is over I already took that photograph without noticing. I however often miss that feeling of taking something special. A split second, something otherwise unnoticed, and I already took that photograph. An effort and achievement is good, but so is fun and excitement. I long for the day not thinking about taking a photograph each day.

Week 18 is finished and I photographed continuously for 491 days.

It feels like it is OK now. OK to stop this PAD project after seventy weeks. To take it more light weighted. To do things more consciously again. To free up time to experiment and learn new things. And to be more aware of that. Or like a friend said to me: “To experience instead of observe“.

It doesn’t feel like a relief nor like a disappointment. It feels like medication. When you start using it, you know it makes sense to do so. But at some point you forget applying it and you realize you don’t need it anymore. I am at this point. It has nothing to do with pressure or with the lack of inspiration and creativity. It is just this definitive and indescribably feeling that it is time to move on. That this PAD-project is finished.

There is time for a new beginning. Or at least I hope so.