just for the joy of it!

the other day a friend said i should lighter topics/subjects, so i started going backwards through my choice of pictures, of my choice of the views of my choice of the places that i've visited. i ended up going way back. i’m still looking. i actually found a bunch of very nice photos that i would use all kind of words to describe, but joyful just wasn’t one of them. i’m already four months into the future. here’s one that has a sweet smell. this one has the sound of ocean gusts of wind. this one has hot sun on a sweaty body. hm… smell of bike oil. cold mist slamming against my cheeks. (i’m already six months back.) my photos don’t have joy. they feel good, and i believe that this feeling is steady and powerful enough. (another friend recently said that they have a GOOD atmosphere.) i comment, i note, i preserve, i convey, i point out, i capture. but i do so with serenity. i associate joy with energy, vivacity, interaction. communication is a great part of the feeling of joy. you have to be part of it in order to feel it. and when i’m part of this then i don’t want to do anything else – not even take pictures. someone would have to give me this task. no matter how many pictures i take, no matter what the ones that i post show – they are not me. they might be about me, parts of me, what it is that i as a perceiving individual (one that presently sees the screen and his hands on the keyboard – through his body’s windshield), but i am not them, nor are they me. my being exists beyond them, no matter how many i take, regardless of how much of a paparazzi i might develop into. and they too exist without me. they might outlive me, they will be interpreted without me, they have a life of their own – now that i’ve finally released them into the world. and like people they might not amount to much, or they might win the world press photo award. hopefully they will at least help an old lady across the street. (hm, i should get back to searching for that joyful photo) all these photos have my joy within them. or at least enjoyment. that’s what the irresponsibility of amateur photography grants you. you do what you want, and as such your work expresses you and nothing else. and there’s always something more to add the next time. just like this blog. i heard long ago that every person carries a story within them, one that might reach the status of song or even book. the problem is to create the next one. both the blog (thoughts) and photos i take with patience and determination. but most of all i enjoy them! i just remembered a photo that i took of myself, on purpose, to record the face of joy. this is actually precisely what i intended it for – to remind myself (and perhaps others) of the joys that exist and will exist, the ones easily forgotten. it was taken exactly three years ago (only?), on a later january night, after i finished work. i worked the sunday night shift, finishing around 1 a.m. it had started to snow, the streets were empty and snow brought silence. it was too good to miss – i had to go embrace it, i had to run it. the park was just a quarter mile from my house. i returned when my lungs started to freeze, with a big snowy white beard. then i got my bike out. this was me when i got back, an hour and a half after first leaving the house. i was alone, my joy would have just been an enjoyment had it not been for my camera. so here you are – a canned, preserved, moment of pure joy. enjoy!