Recently, I decided to publish a book, of a project I have been consciously or unconsciously working on for five or more years. It started with documenting moments which touched me, and the tools were poetry and photography. At that time I didn’t think so much about photography as a career, and I still don’t consider myself a poet. Photography was my hobby, or an activity that gave me an escape from my physical reality. Perhaps this is why; the subjects in the book are also disconnected from their physical environment, and connected to inner world.
It didn’t take long, to understand that neither these images, nor the poems were limited my inner world. They somehow connected to inner world shared by all of us. They were about dreams, happiness and joy, and about sorrow, pain and disappointment, and everything in between.
For many years, the photos and poetry went parallel, disconnected from each other, and with no thought of a book. All the photos and verses were fragments of something deeper, But what? I didn’t know. It took me five years, and several kinds of experiences, to see the red thread passing through the work, which I was creating unconsciously. Once I could see that thread, the consciousness overtook the subconscious.
And I consciously worked on the project for two more years. Some might call it art, some told me its abstract symbolism, but for me it’s representation of what we all go through from time to time. While working on the selected photos and poems in the book, everything became a symbol, including my own body. I couldn’t distinguish between my own body and a tree, or a stagnant piece of rock. It was I, floating through a gentle breeze, at the same time I was the one hurt, in the rotting body of a bird. In those moments, I felt connected to you, and them.
Regardless of the distance and proximity, I felt the waves we all float on. These waves emerge from the depths of our personalities, emotions, and experiences of life, and gradually convert us from rivers to an ocean. When I realized this, I decided to compile all the work, and dedicate it to all of us, breaking the boundaries of you and me.
After all, we all have this deep ocean within us. This is why I named the book “Monsoon over the Pacific” because all the moments which I subconsciously captured, were like small rain drops, creating circles of waves over the water. And, we are all approximately 75% water. Are we not?