I’ve gone through several nightmarish relationships in my life. As a result, my self esteem was damaged beyond remedy. The women I used to be attracted to vaccined me against any kind of complacency and self-absorption and made healthy vanity the fastest shortcut to shame.
Photography became the only acceptable excuse to demand approval and attention, the only source of comfort and relief, the emergency exit, the raw material of new beginnings after emotional downfalls and quakes. The spinal cord of my identity.
And suddenly, the biggest stroke of luck: her adventitious appearance, the unpredictable realization of all emotional needs. The struggle for survival mutated into another kind of primal drive: to give her something of great value in return. To let myself be noticed and succeed, putting this single virtue to a test. To clean up the mess left by past sentimental choices, working hard to earn her magnificent silences, giving the world something as precious as what I had been given.
I barely wheathered the storm until she reclaimed my name from obscurity. Maybe one must be completely emptied in order to be worthy of true grace.
I remember the first time touched her skin with my lenses, long before we really found each other, so even though times of economic recession are not the easiest for artists, I trust the means to find me like she did. Photography is not about distinction and celebrity, but love returning to the world like an antiphon. The privilege of channeling cardinal revelation through ordinary things.
Published on mayo 12, 2009 7:13 am.
Filed under: Autoestimas, Mi otra vida, Pictures Tags: blemish
Most of the people and things I love to the bones were beautiful, bountiful accidents at the very beginning. It would be risky to abridge memory without blotting out the essential. The true relationship between cause and effect is largelly concealed to the conscious mind.
My heart is the ball losing momentum before choosing black or red, odd or even and then falling on to the wheel. They used to sell cameras saying you press the button and we do the rest.
It never was that easy. The whole process takes so much responsibility that I fluctuate between elation and an overwhelming sense of failure from one click to the next.
Some days she arrives home from work totally worn-out. She barely drinks a glass of hot milk and passes away, chronically sleep deprived.
I stay awake with blurry eyes, looking at her, feeling like an impostor, wondering what happy chance put her in my way and how can I make myself deserving of such beauty.
While others spend hours playing X-Box or Wii, I have chosen impatience, expectancy, distress, distrust and fence-sitting fibrillation as my favorite entertainments. I take photographs of the other half of my whole. Starting from the bottom, attempting the way up.
I sometimes feel like things are starting to fall into place and suddenly I’m brutally assaulted by questions about my so called talent. Something goes really wrong with my self esteem.
Tailcoated men walk by the reflection I’ve built of myself on a fuzzy mirror.
Published on mayo 4, 2009 9:24 am.
Filed under: Autoestimas, Observaciones, Pictures Tags: blemish, Intimate Gallery
I clearly remember the day I found out what was going on. The powerful sense of relief and emptiness numbed every single emotion, including betrayal.
I knew I was about taking the biggest leap in my whole life. My hands against the light reminded me my grandfather’s. Suddenly aged, panthocratic, yet innocent and bursting with the urge of creation. I also felt the whole body shaking, the fear of going mad and then, the rest of fears collapsed in two: losing them and not being enough.
I changed hundreds of diapers with those hands. I shot thousands of photographs over their beautiful faces as they were growing up. Now we have to travel far to spend a short weekend together. Now I am the weak one, the deadbeat dad, even though financially supportive, a hopeless failure.
I suspect they are being lied to or denied their right to hold a strong and encouraging masculine reference. The suspicion wouldn’t hurt me so much if I could keep their hearts and minds from all harm until they are secure, self-assured, self-possessed, self-reliant, self-respecting, self-sufficient enough to choose their own fights, choose their own thoughts and heal their own wounds.
Beliefs, memory and perception are tricky. They can be deeply affected by interference and nasty storytelling. I dread the idea that they will pay the price of our faults. I dread the idea of them trapped in a vicious cycle of lousy relationships just because they were told a horror tale of deprivation, absence and neglect. It’s just unacceptable.
What did I see in my ex? What was I thinking? I don’t care anymore.
I won’t nullify the miracle and treasure of the days we welcomed them to life.
I resist to join the war. I won’t hold on to hate.
I pledge not to bad mouth and brainwash them myself.
I won’t tell them stories of saints and sinners.
My amazing girls still walk on water.
Published on abril 28, 2009 3:30 pm.
Filed under: En este momento, Mi otra vida, Textos Tags: blemish