A long overnight flight home is always a good time for introspection….

(especially in a window seat at the emergency exit, with a full moon outside :-)

I feel blessed being able to do the things I am doing… blessed for the health of my family… and blessed that, even though we are literally scattered throughout the world, once every so often, we suddenly appear to be together in one geographical place – simply enjoying being.

-anton

Antoine D’Agata with beer and cigarette – back staircase on the 6th floor, Brooklyn, New York, 2009

I knew when i had made the image, that something had happened.

But i needed long talks with family and friends to be able to put my finger on what it meant exactly… David, being in Mexico as well, was the first i could talk to. At the time i had no clue how my developing visual language was tied into my own psyche, my own history and personality, and i really needed help contextualizing what i had just created and what it meant to me.

It was a hard time for me right after that image.

It felt like I had touched something very personal, and to be honest i never expected this to happen. I mean, while taking pictures? It got so bad, I’d find myself traveling, wandering the streets all over the world desperately trying to find myself, pointing my camera inwards along the way.

Only very slowly i learned to use this feeling as a positive rather than a constrictive force. But it was hard – and sometimes, when i get into that mood, it still is – to make that switch.

Yes, i’m a gemini :-/

I honestly never thought i would ever even have something resembling anything close to a life long project. It sounds so daunting. It’s sounds so… pompous. So… something that fake artists declare, so… something so not like me, and certainly not something to tell anyone about.

But for some reason, it gives me a tremendous peace of mind and a kind of tranquility that i never expected.

I know i might never complete it, let alone publish it. Come to think of it, completion is not even relevant. But publication is, i guess… And i have a gut feeling that the chance of publishing this project will be directly related to how successful in general i will be as a photographer, because i’m sure i’ll have to use up all my credit to get this one published.

I am, effectively, building up my entire career, just to have enough credit to make this happen.

No joke. That’s how it feels. Sounds weird doesn’t it.

—

The project “dislocate” is more than just photography: it spills over to the rest of my life. My relationship with my family has always been exceptional, and now it is even better; I’m much more at ease in any friend or love relationship; when I’m working, I now work harder and more efficiently; and I love what I do more than before.

On the other hand, I’m also much more intolerant and nervous, and get angry more often, when confronted with things that waste time or energy… I’m much more focused, and realize more than before that we are all given only one time here on this world. And I feel I have to make it count.

—

“dislocate” is not a singular project anymore. It’s an assignment, it’s commercial, it’s art, it’s my life, all at the same time. It does not distract me from any other work i do. It is just, simply, there.  I could best describe it as an energy, a mood that runs through me, all the time. It isn’t even fixed to photography… Photography just happens to be the vehicle to express at this point in time.

“dislocate” forces me to open my mind as wide as i can. It makes me not judge others and listen instead, trying to understand. I honestly believe it might even make me a better person.

“dislocate” is my sense of my place in this world. Me feeling uprooted, my incessant looking for where i belong.

Where my land is.

Funny that feeling dislocated, something that used to unsettle me and make me nervous, now actually makes me feel calm instead.

I still get nervous sometimes though… but not too often anymore.

Actually, I think “dislocate” is never meant to be finished. It is just the thing that makes me feel that i am a photographer.

Hmm…

I hope it never goes away.

B+W magazine, special issue #68, 2009

A story set in Oaxaca, Mexico, during the Day of the Dead (Dia de los Muertos), about the ghosts that are the fleeting moments of our existence in this world.

“I see a Ghost” has been published in B+W Magazine, special issue #68, 2009. More info here.