I am sitting under a tree.

It has sheltered me beneath its huge canopy. I cannot see the structure of the leaves, cannot see whether there are flowers there or not. It is just a large dark roof above me.

In front of me is the Svislach. The embankment, concrete, rare passersby. Night, silence, darkness. I am a little bored.

During the day, it feels as if we have many options. Any photographer will understand me. And not even necessarily a professional photographer, but a person who goes out with a camera, or a person who goes out without a camera but simply knows how to look. During the day, you dive into this abundance. You see so much. The world itself offers you frames, shapes, light, faces, trees, reflections.

But sometimes you do not want to choose from what is already given. Sometimes you want to look into the unknown. To trust what is here now. To see what is around me within arm’s reach. To touch it, in another language.

I take out the camera. Maybe out of boredom. Maybe with a childlike curiosity. I point it upward, turn on the flash, and take one shot.

Not ten. Not a series. I do not check the screen.

Just one shot.

I see the flash light up the tree for a second. And the world immediately returns back into darkness. I put the camera away and continue walking through the night city.

But later, already at home, when I open this photograph on the computer and develop it, I suddenly see what I did not see there, on the bench. Leaves. Flowers. Structure. The beauty that, at that moment, was right beside me, above me, around me.

I made a simple accidental “shot” with the camera, but it illuminated what was already there in reality.

In the note “A View from the Dark”, there was the thought that sometimes you need to remove the excess light in order to see differently. To look from the dark. To listen from silence. To step out of the noise of the day, out of the obvious, out of ready-made illumination.

Here the thought is similar, but it is about something slightly different.

Here I am not simply looking from the dark. I am trusting the space. Trusting the moment. Taking a step without knowing what exactly I will see.

Perhaps this is how it happens in life too.

We make some simple step. Sometimes almost accidental. We direct our attention toward a place where there seems to be nothing special. We illuminate a piece of reality for a second. And in that very moment, it may tell us nothing. We see only the flash, a brief illumination, an instant. And then everything returns to darkness again.

But something has already happened.

We have already exposed reality.

And now we only need to stop and see what has emerged.

It’s interesting how photography makes you notice things that help you look at other areas of life as well. And perhaps it’s not only photography that works this way. Any practice you truly focus on can reveal something larger. Not only inside the practice itself, but around it too.

I’m thinking now about dark photography. About an image where the details are almost indistinguishable. Where the play of light and shadow is not so obvious. Where there are no strong jumps in brightness, no familiar contrast, no immediately readable picture. And this photograph is not necessarily made this way on purpose. Sometimes it is simply an image in a dark key. A photograph taken at night.

At night, our attention works differently. We look at light differently. We become more sensitive to faint details, to barely visible transitions, to small patches of brightness. We do not need as much light as we do during the day to make out form, shadow, presence.

But the most interesting thing does not happen when you look at such a photograph at night. The most interesting thing begins during the day. You open the image in daylight, and suddenly there is just a dark rectangle in front of you. What was full of details at night becomes empty during the day. Not because the details are not there, but because you are no longer looking from the same state.

And if we look at this more broadly, something similar happens in life. We can also fail to see certain moments because we are looking at them from the wrong state. Not in the right light. Not in the right inner time. What was once full of meaning can later seem like just a dark spot. We look and do not understand what was there. We do not make out the details. We do not feel the depth. We pass by something that was once alive.

To see such a photograph, you almost have to return to the state in which it was made. To look at it in a different light. At a different time of day. And if we are speaking about life, in a different mood, in a different silence, with a different kind of attention.

Sometimes, to see something, you do not need to add more brightness. Sometimes you simply need to enter the darkness again.

I love capturing simple moments. Different generations. Ordinary people living ordinary lives. Without pretense or gloss. That evening I wasn’t thinking about the value of the frame. I just met people and pressed the shutter button.

It’s these kinds of shots that teach you to appreciate the moment. I open the photograph I took that summer evening and think about them. Some are gone. Someone got distracted by something trivial. Someone is going through a crisis or walking into the fog toward a dream, feeling the brass of life and unaware of the coming storms and cliffs.

It’s not about another lucky “shot” for social media. It’s about attention. Despite the noise and the world’s overindulgence, to notice something simple and alive.

I’m walking around warm summer Minsk with my camera.

In childhood, many different events happened - everything was new, everything was for the first time, everything was interesting. But the older we get, the more “flat” and monotonous life feels. It seems that now there is little surprise, but a lot of routine. You may well remember the moment you met a peer on that cozy winter evening in the schoolyard twenty-five years ago, but you don’t remember the topic of an interesting conversation with a friend two months ago or the delight of yesterday’s sunset.

People strive to diversify their lives, to make it brighter and richer, but if you turn around and look back, everyone will see a dark, calm river. Life flows, but we do not remember its moments.

Looking at childhood, we understand that we have become better. Growth and development are noticeable in the comparison of the current and previous moments (retrospective).

Here’s what I wrote about this in my regular note 2024-05-19:

In general, the question of coercion and motivation is open. Is it necessary to do this or am I thus preventing myself from maturing and being reborn, renewed? Without renewal I am degrading. A child cannot refuse to grow and mature. But as we age, if we do not observe progress in retrospect, we do not develop. I wanted to write that time is not worth it and you need to keep up, but is an oak tree or a leaf trying to keep up? Are they generally afraid of being late?

But I will focus on this. The point is not to compare something to look smart. Today, from every “iron” you can hear a call to become even more intelligent, well-read, analytical, and comparing. Nope! You need to be human and just try to live the moments more carefully, not lose the precious “beads” of life, but carefully collect them and string them on a fishing line, enjoying life, observing and drawing conclusions about yourself and the world around you.

What to do? Start documenting your life!

The other day I worked on photographs of Nikita that I took last summer. I sent it to him. A few hours later I received a review.

It’s very nice to receive sincere feedback about a project that I did with pleasure and love. This is not an advertisement or a moment of vanity. I knew that the project was cool and the person appreciated the result - everything was natural and it couldn’t have been any other way.

Wow, this is so cool ✨✨✨ I haven’t had any photos like this!

The best thing is to guess these long days 😇

Is there an Instagram? I wish I could decide 😉

But, you can get feedback that will mentally return you to your routine - “Oh no, that was a pussy!” Even if the author of this review uses the most colorful epithets, this is a fake. You created a fake, you were valued falsely, all you have to do is falsely rejoice. Most people today are living a fake life.

• Feeling is a skill
• Understanding who is worth working with and who is not is a skill
• Creating by sincerely expressing yourself is a skill

This will definitely not be taught in trainings or at university. They teach just the opposite - how not to be your real self, but to be like this one (or that one). How to put away your best qualities, replacing them with a cheap fake. How to rejoice correctly, radiate confidence and optimism.

Back to the review. Yes, it was a sunny summer evening. Good evening!

We work with people and for people. Alive and real. It is extremely important to sincerely express yourself while enjoying the process - this is the basis for great results and truly satisfied clients.

Don’t deceive others! Do not lie to yourself!

P.s. I’ll post photos a little later. I’ll add the link here.

Last summer, during another photo walk, a guy approached me (as I understood him to be a Turk) and asked him to photograph. No problem! He asked me to send the photos to gmail, but instead of leaving me his address, he wrote down mine. I was like “in star mode” - OK, I wrote down my email, so he’ll write and I’ll send you the photos. I even retouched them a little - done! But the Turk did not write.

Perhaps I forgot. Perhaps he was embarrassed, but I am more inclined to believe that he simply did not realize that he needed to write to me. It’s a pity! The photos are good, but I had to delete them because… I do not need them.