Timeline: Namibia, 8 April 2009. My time machine splashed down in the dry desert climate at Windhoek airport. Vivid is the memory of standing on the hot dusty runway after exiting the plane and for some reason I started spinning, smiling at the huge sky. I basically kickstarted my life as a nomad time traveling photographer there and then. Broke out of my too-closed too-small little-hope life.
Timeline: Copenhagen, April 2012. 3 trips around the sun, 3 years have passed but time is relative. Feels like 3 years, feels like 30 years, feels like yesterday. When you live like a time traveling gypsy, living everywhere and nowhere, time is circular and often irrelevant. I lived a lifetime in these 3 years yet some days it seems that just a few days has gone by as no matter where I go, most things happened to me in other places.
Timeline: Copenhagen, Now. It is amazing to see family and old friends again and I have a feeling the future can be rather exciting. Interesting projects are brewing and my mind seems clearer, working, in good shape. Able to gaze hopefully into the future. And reflect on the past with fewer train crashes of the mind.
Three trips around the sun and I gained the world. Paid a prize for it, broke myself a little bit, but gained the world. I gained a worldwide network of brilliant friends, more than I could ever hope for. Had I an actual time and space machine I would visit you all every week. Visited some very interesting corners of the Earth and met interesting people. Evolved my photography by leaps and bounds and occasionally made an interesting picture. Learned a great deal about the world and an even greater deal about me.
Made lots of stupid choices. Lost some friends. Hurt some people. So sorry. Got broken. Healed. Regrets? Some. Wouldn’t change a thing goes the saying but it’s not true, there’s a few things I would really like to change. Cannot and am not supposed to. It is only a pretend-timemachine I have. And no regrets in taking off 3 years ago. Living on the road becomes an everyday life as well. It has nothing to do with a ‘trip’ or ‘holiday’. Often my life makes no sense and it bothers me. But it’s simply life and still just life, like our world, it is amazing and awful, funny and sad, highs and lows, good and bad choices. It is a strange, dark, mad life and world, so much beauty and so much despair. So much yet to see. So very addictive.
It is life but a lot more amplified living like this, volume on 11, intense compressed roller coaster ride of emotions and no base nor routine to stop you drowning on the bad days. Not sure I would ever recommend it to anyone. A side of me would rather curl up in a corner and hide forever. But another side throws the cap over the wall and says ‘no choice but to go get it now’. No base, stability, routine but then again, there is no ceiling and no limit on the good days. No strings, Gepetto.
Timeline: Future. I hope the future is soon. Hope I can will two projects to happen. “You opened Pandora’s Box” a dear friend said the other day. Yes, and there’s no closing it. “With all that you have seen, all you have done, there’s no going back. It would drive you insane. Tear you apart” — Doctor Who. Nor do I want to go back. Must make these projects work and my peculiar way of life work.
Inspired by the three trips around the sun, places I have been, people and have met — and very recently, NGO project managers I met in Argentina — I feel a burning desire to work for a humanitarian organization managing projects abroad, stationed around the world. Not content with just observing and documenting anymore I wish to attempt to help, use my skills to make a difference–for some people at least. My photography will continue with the same dedication slash obsession, working on personal projects and becoming a skilled documentary photographer. There is an exciting secret project with my friend Mark Stothard. And a trip to New Mexico coming up that I’m awfully excited about. With luck I will also find a small cheap place in Copenhagen to be a home, a base.
Gained the world and I feel it has only just started. Yes I trust the future is soon. And the next many trips around the sun are looking quite interesting. See you in the universe.
