Changes

Over the years, an amateur photographer goes through many changes. Every creative person knows these phases: a period of black and white, an enthusiasm for HDR, experiments with dodging and burning, or an Orton effect that briefly seems like magic.
This is not a sign of indecision. It is part of the journey, a natural learning process. Just as the northern lights dance across the sky, a photographer's style changes too, always moving and searching until a personal visual language begins to emerge.

That can take years, and there is no reason to rush. I have been photographing for more than twenty years. And yes, there were periods when I did little more than look at my camera without using it.

It is like looking out of the window: if you have not seen the northern lights for a while, you have not forgotten them. You miss them. Then one day, quite suddenly, they return. Photography is similar. Eventually a quiet period ends, and you pick up the camera again. You feel something changing. Technology moves forward, and so do the tools we use: software, editing workflows and our own way of seeing. At first the changes can be abrupt and short-lived. Over time they become calmer, deeper and slower, like a river finding its course.

And so we return to the northern lights. A photograph captures only one instant. A blink later, the scene looks different, perhaps even more beautiful, perhaps strange and almost surreal, but always real, always there for a moment.
That is how the creative phases of an artist work. They come, they shine and they pass. With every light that fades, space opens for something new. Time for change.