April 06, 2010
Coincidences...do they exist?
More than a year and a half ago I went to Florence and photographed several men, well, this weekend I went back and ran into one of them in the exact same spot where I photographed him last time.
It seems too unlikely for it to be a coincidence. We both remembered meeting because photographing a stranger by surprise always ends up being a micro-intimate relationship, for a few minutes they give you permission to observe them closely. I remember each and every person I have photographed, many times I walk through Madrid and recognize them; but Florence... so long after... in the same place... too much of a coincidence.
These impossible coincidences happen to me so often that I am already convinced that they don't exist, things happen for a reason, sometimes you create them by thinking about them, sometimes they appear as a sign and you have to know how to read them to interpret them for the future. This mystical-alchemist tone à la Paulo Coelho that I bring you today is because I was truly impressed to meet this man again, I insist, in the same alley months later camera in hand, and because people often ask me about the luck I've had lately.
Luck only accounts for 20% friends, the other 80% is work, work, work and a lot of guts in life, writing to someone you don't dare tell something to, showing up at someone's store proposing something at the risk of it not working out, standing at the door of a fashion show you won't move from until they let you in... that's how it all begins. It's good to remember that for every one thing that goes well, there are 10 that went wrong. But once you get the wheel turning, inertia will start to act, the undeniable substitute for coincidence.
These impossible coincidences happen to me so often that I am already convinced that they don't exist, things happen for a reason, sometimes you create them by thinking about them, sometimes they appear as a sign and you have to know how to read them to interpret them for the future. This mystical-alchemist tone à la Paulo Coelho that I bring you today is because I was truly impressed to meet this man again, I insist, in the same alley months later camera in hand, and because people often ask me about the luck I've had lately.
Luck only accounts for 20% friends, the other 80% is work, work, work and a lot of guts in life, writing to someone you don't dare tell something to, showing up at someone's store proposing something at the risk of it not working out, standing at the door of a fashion show you won't move from until they let you in... that's how it all begins. It's good to remember that for every one thing that goes well, there are 10 that went wrong. But once you get the wheel turning, inertia will start to act, the undeniable substitute for coincidence.
So for next year I will intensely focus on meeting this other wonderful gentleman and his French (English, they rightly correct me) bulldog that I loved and I think they deserve a full session.
Post-holiday spirits,
La Condesa. No guts! No glory!
Post-holiday spirits,
La Condesa. No guts! No glory!