31/05 - Happiness has the color sun

First I thought the subject in a context of negative feelings. Probably because of the example of paranoia, it may have distracted me a bit. I suffer of panic attacks every once in a while so those feelings of paranoia, fear and agony are familiar to me. But they've never changed how I see the world. If anything, those moments have changed how I see myself.

But I've had those moments too - moments when you are so absorbed to the moment you feel connected to the world in a different way than before. In a pure, deep way. For me those moments have always been moments of joy. Those quick instants when you can't feel anything than pure happiness for a while. I then feel like I were part of my environment, not a separate being.

Next I had to think how I would put those moments in a form of a picture. I'm more a photographer than any other kind of an artist, so I chose photos as my way. Colours are very important to me. I see the world first in colours and after that come sounds, shapes etc. Colours are the first thing I pay attention to, and the last thing I remember. I remember colours better than happenings or people. When I think some kind of emotion, I often see it as a colour.

So I chose these two photographs that show my colours of happiness. I can't explain why, but the colours of sunset are the ones I connect to the moments of joy. These pictures are taken in a different location and different time, but there's something similar in the atmosphere of them. At least to me. When I look at these pictures I remember those passing moments I were so happy it almost hurt.

For me it's in the pink, orange, yellow and lilac.

31/05 - NY

The building were I stayed was on 96th and Broadway. New York was in the middle of a heat wave, and I had no other choice than sleeping with all the windows open every night. 24 hours a day, I was exposed to heavy traffic noise, sounds of street fights, sirens and all other sounds you find in a city of this size. I took the boat to Staten Island. you'd expect one to feel very at ease there, away from the big city, in a quiet suburb. But it was just that what gave me a very strange feeling. I couldn't stand the silence, my heart rate went up, I started sweating and I felt very uncomfortable. From the diner where I was eating a burger, you could see the Manhattan skyline, and I just HAD to go back there, because this feeling was getting increasingly worse. I felt like a bee that has gotten too far away from his beehive called Manhattan. I got so used to the citylife, I couldn't stand this boring peaceful place. I knew this was about to happen one day, because this sort of panicattacks run in the family, I just never expect it to happen in a cute little diner on a tree lined suburban street...

this is the first picture I took when I got back on Manhattan, I threw away all the photo's I made on Staten Island.