Selfportraits (Patreon)

Part 1

In Paris, during the Paris Photo , I met a girl I’ve known for a while from the NFT community. She’s quite well known in the art-nude circles there. We chatted a bit, everything was warm and easy… until she asked me the two deadliest questions for any artist who’s been living in semi-hibernation: “What are your creative plans?” and “What project are you working on right now?”

Instantly I start being red. I felt embarrassed, awkward, almost exposed. I have never really made “projects.” I’ve never had some big creative plan - except for the ones that never happen 😄 (yes, I’m talking about the photobook again). Ideas appear in my head all the time, but they almost never make it to the finish line.

And ever since I shifted into my new social role - girlfriend-fiancée-housewife - I’ve started questioning everything I do. Do I still love what I’m doing? Am I doing it because I want to, or simply out of habit? Is this even something I can make a living from? After changing my country, my continent and my entire identity in society, so many questions floated up… even walking through a gallery triggered a whole storm inside me.

I was endlessly happy, inspired, fascinated - and at the same time I wanted to run away, hide, disappear in a quiet corner. I always wanted to create something meaningful, not just “pretty” photographs. Something that makes people stop, think, feel, something that doesn’t let the viewer simply walk past.

But one year of isolation and this desire seemed to evaporate.

And then the question hits me: was that desire even mine? And if it is still mine, then why did I stop allowing myself to want it the moment I entered a serious relationship? Why did my desires become quieter - or did I silence them myself? Do women lose something when they step into partnership, or do we simply reshuffle our priorities?

Do some dreams fade because they were never truly ours… or because intimacy makes us choose comfort over ambition?

It’s crazy how fast the rhythm of a city affects us… how quickly it pulls us away from ourselves and turns us into one big unconscious stream of movement.

Spoiler alert!!! - reconnecting with photographers and models, plus being in a big art city again, is already stirring that desire back. That hunger to be a real artist. To be a little bigger than I was yesterday.

P.S You’ve already seen the film shots from this shower series. They were shown in Osphilia, and because I’m a little paranoid about losing good film, I was genuinely scared they wouldn’t come out right. The lighting in that bathroom was chaotic - some frames were way too bright, others too dark for film, and I was shooting on auto mode, so I kept thinking the whole thing would be a disaster. So just in case, I also shot a digital version. Some moments I repeated, some I changed, some I explored differently - and now I want to share those with you too. There will be a second part coming soon.

And I’m curious - which vibe do you enjoy more in this series: the film energy or the digital atmosphere?