DISCONNECT TO RECONNECT

Remember those summer moments as a child when everything was so unimportant, when TIME didn’t exist. You didn’t have phone around EVERYWHERE but you could still find your friends and mom still found you somewhere for lunch break. You didn’t have camera around but you still remember these moments clearly, you can even remember the smell of it, the taste of it… It was magical.

Today the picture of summer is waaay different. Everyone is wired. Everyone is obsessed with daily dose of morning information that they must get before they even make themselves breakfast.

Can you imagine a day with none of that bullshit? Or let’s say a week. No “likes”, no “comments” and bunch of negative news… Disconnect. Just you and LIFE around you, that you are missing while scrolling down your cell phone. It’s difficult if you are at home, sitting and doing nothing, basically bored at everything. For the real adventure you have to go out. To the nature, to a trip, a walk,… Just OUT of your couch, TV, Computer etc… And yes, summer is perfect for that.

It’s stupid what kind of a routine we’ve created. If you don’t get online, you think you’re missing something REALLY extremely important etc… But no one has the same kind of feeling while online (or busy making pictures) about missing something extremely important in reality as well. And we are missing it big time.  We are missing the important touch with ourselves and life around us. While checking all the apps on our phones or taking dozens of pictures for these apps…, we are missing the light, the smell, the touch, the taste, the sound all around us. We are missing the whole picture.

While watching one of the most beautiful sunsets I have ever seen - while on the boat at the seaside when the sky was so clear you could actually see the sun going behind the Italian Alps - I wanted to capture EVERY single moment of that magic on camera. I kept photographing it and photographing it, just like I want to capture it, like you capture a bird and you keep it in a cage. One picture would be IT. After a little while I just stopped. There’s no need to have all of these pictures on my camera if I am experiencing it RIGHT NOW. The moment will soon pass and it’s not going to be as beautiful as it is RIGHT NOW.

Remember! No bird (animal) is happy in a cage. And (metaphorically speaking) the same goes for all of these beautiful moments that you want to capture and put it EVERYWHERE so that everyone will see it and you’ll be left with only the pictures, because you didn’t have time to enjoy the magic of it in the present moment.  

Make one or two photos and then leave it. Those beautiful moments like “my” sunset were not made to be captured in (a cage, or ) cell phone app, or camera… there’re made to be captured in a heart! So let yourself go and enjoy the moment. Feel the life around you, because it will give you a special MEMORY. The one you’ll remember when you’re going to smell one particular flower, or hear particular song,…

So, disconnect to reconnect YOURSELF.

Feel the air and sun, smell the flowers, talk with people, laugh and MAKE memories …in your heart. 

Art by VLADIMIR KUSH