Street photography is the glue that holds my life together. I feel honoured to take a photo; the passion I feel when I pick up my camera is unreal. As I start writing this blog, it’s the middle of May, and in four days, I’ll be travelling back to Spain for a week, my fifth time this year. This year has been really hard for me and my passion. I’m struggling like I’ve never done before. I used to be able to see moments before they even happened. I was focused on the streets, relaxed, and it really helped with my mental health.
I really do believe that the trip to Thailand was one of the best things I’ve done in my life, and yet I think it also killed my photography. Let me try to explain why. In Bangkok, everything happens all at once, and it doesn’t go quiet. The city is alive 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Yes, around the Sukhumvit area, it felt like any other city in the West, lots of people moving from shop to shop, mobile phones in hands, and a starbucks on every corner. This was an area that we avoided. My wife and I were always looking for the old areas of the city, and I was looking for something different to photograph.
Once we found these areas, I didn’t stop taking photos. Nearly everything I was seeing and capturing was very different from anything I could take in the UK. Once I came home and started hitting the streets, I found that I just couldn’t shoot. I began to notice that everyone here is on a mobile phone or they have a Starbucks cup in their hands, and there’s nothing worth my time, or at least that’s how I’ve been thinking each time I’m on the streets.
Because I’m struggling to see, I’m starting to lose interest in my passion, which in turn is having a massive impact on my mental health. I’m not eating right, I feel sick all the time, I don’t really sleep that well, I break down often crying and I have no idea why. I’m noticing more and more things that I find are annoying me, including my wife and the noises she makes when she’s sleeping. This isn’t something that should bother me and yet it makes me so damn angry and I’m asking myself why. I’m starting to lose control again. I can feel the negativity creeping in. I’m finding the only time I feel relaxed is when I’m in Spain. The warmth, the sun, and of course, the beer. Just sitting by the beach with an ice-cold Radler in my hands is enough to switch my thoughts off. I find the hours just pass by, and it’s great. The problem is I’m not doing photography; all I’m doing is sitting there watching the world pass me by. When I come back home, I start feeling low. I find that I’m causing myself injury. I’m banging my head against the wall in hope that something will change.
I hoped that by writing these thoughts down it might help me see a path out of this struggle, the truth is, it hasn’t. The UK is a depressing place to live, let’s look at this year, we’ve had awful weather, it’s just been grey and miserable which makes everyone around miserable. As a photographer that spends his time on the streets looking at people it’s so easy for me to become as miserable as those around me, which then lends into me becoming depressed and angry. When I get low everything pisses me off, I start having awful thoughts about ending my life or something worse. When this happens I try to find a place where I can sit and meditate and in doing so I try to find inner peace, I start to become calm but honestly it doesn’t last long and the second I’m back on the streets I’m getting angry. I mean I’m sitting in a coffeehouse writing this blog, I’m wearing my Apple AirPods Max with music playing really loud and yet instead of being focused on the writing or the music I’m finding that I’m focusing on this god damn child screaming. I can’t help it, instead of focusing on what is helping me I’m locked in on the noise that’s pissing me off, I want to kill the little bastard. Why the hell doesn’t the mum smack this bloody kid and tell him to shut up?? No instead she talks to him like he’s not doing anything wrong promising him sweets if he stops shouting, I mean what the fuck, my dad would’ve hit me and promised bed with no food. Oh how the times have changed.
I’m really starting to lose control of everything and because I’m struggling with the photography I’m finding I have nothing to turn to, so I have nothing that helps calm me. Yes, travel has been helping like nothing else ever has and I know the week in Spain is going to help me but I still have to come home and face the fact that it could be months before I travel again as we’re saving for Spain in August and Thailand in January. I worry about the state of my mind over the coming months and I really hope that I start to shoot again, before I call it a day.
Again, I would like to reiterate that these blogs are for my personal use. I write and post them for my own reflection when I am feeling low. I am also aware that they are helpful to others. I receive regular emails expressing admiration for my bravery and honesty. While this is encouraging, I do not write them feeling brave and have had friends and family advise against posting them.
Here are a few photos of one of my favourite places on Earth: Sitges.
