OK as you know from the topic for me this has been a very tough challenge because for me it was not just simply a case of taking a photograph of something that represented my religious beliefs. For me it became a journey of self discovery because I had to work out just what my religious beliefs were. It is probably very unusual for a photography competition to say that the photos are unimportant but this is the truth, they are but mere records of the journey I took to take them. Now it is also important to remember though they are two photos they can not be considered separately because they represent parts of the road to self discovery.
Up until a few years ago my world had been a certainty, I knew what I was going to do as a career, where I was going to go to university, where I was going to live and ultimately I was certain that there was no God. But then things changed, I realised the college I was at was not for me, I hated the course I had chosen to study. I had to change and changed a lot of things in my life such as switching to courses that allowed me to be creative, I switched to a college that finally felt right to me. Yet in this time of confusion my certainty in my religious beliefs were shaken. I had been so certain of my future and yet that had all been proven wrong so why was I still convinced God didn’t exist? The truth is I could no longer be certain of anything with in my life, I watched as my friends from high school became drunks and drug addicts to various degrees, there beliefs were simple, there might not be a next time.
I couldn’t live like that and so I threw myself into exploration I tried the religion I’d been so determined to be against, Christianity and yet I felt nothing towards it I still couldn’t cope with the idea that God existed and I could not cope with Christian rhetoric and yet I still felt the need to have religion in my life. I considered Judaism but that was even worse than Christianity in fact all the religions seemed too based upon one simple belief. God does exist but our God is the correct one to follow. I didn’t like that for one I still do not believe in a higher being that has created everything but more importantly I disliked the intolerance to other belief systems. Then I found Buddhism and at first Buddhism made sense, it did not require me to believe in a God because God didn’t exist, they are more like angels and are ultimately unimportant, however what is important is striving to achieve Nirvana. At this point I started to read about meditation. I genuinely believed I had found my religion and yet something just did not feel right, I can not explain it because I still do not understand it myself but this religion that made perfect sense did not feel like it was for me.
I was stuck, I was a person seeking religion and yet could not find one that represented my beliefs and this is the state I have been in for a year stuck in limbo between religion and atheism.
And now today the journey. Whenever I feel sad or angry I roller blade, I do it for freedom because I am away from stuff and I am relaxed. Today however I decided to roller blade to the river. This is not a simple journey and takes 30 minutes to roller blade there, it is further complicated by the fact that you have to go down a steep hill that requires you to take off the blades and walk down. So I did I walked down a hill bare foot across searing hot tarmac burning my feet as I went along. I had got to my destination and yet I felt unhappy with it. It felt like the journey was not over yet and so I walked down the river barefoot. This is no easy task because the river is a dirt road it is full of stones and the occasional bit of glass. When walking down this road you are forced to walk slowly and to think about everything you are doing for fear of cutting yourself and having to go to hospital the only thoughts you can have are were to put my next footstep. After a good half an hour of walking I stopped for the first time in a long time I had walked somewhere with out thinking, with out a mind full of thoughts clouding my brain, making me stressed, making me angry. I felt free.
I stopped and sat down by the river hands clasped together and just watched as the river flowed and eventually I closed my eyes and concentrated on my breathing. I have never felt this way before and all I can describe it is as peace. My words do not justify the feeling I got watching the world go bye. The ducks casually swimming past the rusting dock.
So what exactly is it that I believe? I believe in beauty, these pictures represent how I see the world because I believe in the beauty of nature and the beauty of what man has created. To me the docks represent a class of different types of beauty, the man made which is not just designed for practicality and that of nature something that we can not create but only manipulate. I still do not know if a higher being created the earth, nor do I know if nirvana exists but neither am I convinced we exist for no other purpose than to reproduce. I will probably never find my answers but maybe the search for these answers is all that’s important.
The pictures were taken several hours after this journey and so will only ever be an attempt to recapture how I felt, the explanation was written as soon as I got home.
As for the competition I can third.
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