hand in hand
african sundowns
drunk on love
and poetry
we sail across
the golden horizon
that so softly touch
our skins
***
hand in hand
african skies
we ascend to
heaven's gates
where we unite
our burning passions
and begin our journey
back to earth
It has been a couple of years now. In fact, it has been a full 2 and a half years. Life is a strange wave that crashes over you and you do not have full control over what happens.
We commissioned a photographer (a.k.a. me) to take some photographs with the African sun setting in the background. The scene was carefully selected. A field, a tree, big enough space so that we could dance.
I mounted the camera on a tripod, and I set it up to take photographs every couple of seconds, to capture the forbidden dance, to frame the moment for eternity.
We created a drunk moment without words, poetry without writing anything down, and we memorialised the bond in that very moment.
Life sometimes sweeps you from your feet, and sometimes this is accompanied by a girl that you want to write, and sometimes when you get those words written down, everything happens so fast, like a wave crashing over you, like a dam's walls breaking, like the floodgates being opened.
Sometimes, you just have to let go, and see what happens...
It is said that we fall in love. It is akin to violence, and if I remember correctly it is the philosopher Slavoj Žižek that almost romanticises this falling, this violence that occurs when someone falls in love. It is a shattering of one's world, a change, a fundamental reorientation of being. And this is needed, because if we found our equal, our exact copy in another, that is, someone without any flaws in our eyes, a relationship would not be very good. There would be no space to grow, no space to love each other for their difference. There would be no falling.
This falling leads to unpredictability. If we find our equal partner, the one without faults and flaws, there is no room for anything to happen, it will be predictable, it will be "boring", and nothing will happen. It will feel deterministic and pre-planned. It will run smoothly, without bumps.
Is this what love is?
The unpredictable nature of humans, of couples who are not 100% equals, is what keeps us bound, the friction between us is what keeps us secured to each other. We are constantly falling, always unpredictable, always creating friction.
When glueing or cementing something together, the perfect surface is not the one that is totally smooth, but the one with bumps, imperfections, one that has more contact surface so that the glue, the cement, can create a strong and secure bond.
Is this not what love is?
Love is the unpredictable.
Love is the friction.
Love is the bond that is secured by differences.
Love is the falling and constant falling, the strange, the dance that seems to be chaotic movements only you and your partner understand.
Love is this private language that has only two native speakers, you and your partner.
And in the end, one stands before the waterfall of love, the strange yet mesmerising moment of unpredictable chaos.
It has been two and a half years. And we have leapt into the unknown, into the chaotic world of love and the constant fall.
I hope that you enjoyed this engagement shoot that my fiance and I did for and of ourselves. It was a truly interesting and unique experience. One that I am sure we would not have gotten from someone else.
For now, happy photographing, and keep well!
All of the photographs used in this post are my own, taken with my Nikon D300 and Tamron 300mm zoom lens or my 50mm Nikkor lens. The musings and writings are my own, unless stated otherwise.