How I learned to accept what it really feels to change
Growth is uncomfortable. It’s a hard process. It’s a place where the ground that used to be solid starts to evaporate, to sizzle in pieces. But change is inevitable - it’s part of growing as a photographer. So I have learned to embrace that place of discomfort until the world could make sense again. Until I could make sense again.
My current work focuses on colour photography - I have finally defined what colour meant to me. This image is part of my London series entitled Eyes Wide Open.
Sometimes it takes effort to find oneself as a photographer. And sometimes it takes courage to change, to evolve, and to recognise that what we used to do doesn’t work anymore. There will be moments in your journey where things will be clear to you - who you are as a photographer, the narrative that you have constructed around your work, even your style or styles will be more sharply defined, recognisable perhaps amongst who follow you.
And there are times where you will feel lost, where nothing quite makes sense. When asked what matters to you as a photographer, you may hesitate. The answer is not yet - or is no longer - coming clearly at you. And this is ok. Tolerating the discomfort of not knowing where we are going is the fate of many of us at some point or another. Only those who never change nor evolve can claim their feelings of confidence. But staying in your comfort zone is not necessarily healthy. It’s not necessarily helpful. And it’s rarely sustainable as it turns out, as humans are not built to remain static, unchanged, unmoved.
A typical image from my early work in Chicago, followed by a period of black and white in London. I have called this series American Fairytale
While I started street photography in 2012, I developed a clear sense of direction almost from the get go. I had a vision: I only had to look inside of me to know when and what to shoot, as if the world captured was a mirror to my own psyche, to my emotions. I quickly grew in confidence, exhibiting my work in Chicago in 2013 and 2014. Once in London, my style evolved but remained focused on my internal emotional states - purely in black and white as I had done since the beginning. And then in 2017-18, I knew I had to change. Alongside a difficult period in my life, my photography was no longer working. I decided to quit B&W and to shoot in colour…but I had no idea what colour meant to me. What I was without beautiful women in shades of grey, without falling lights and shadows. I only knew that after taking the same image again and again, a drastic change needed to happen.
But in truth, I didn’t change overnight, no. It took me a few years to get clarity, and emerge on the other side. To know what colour meant to me. To know what was ‘next’.
An image from 2018 which I had never processed, until I came back to my archives years later. That’s how I realised that I had been already shooting the same way that I shoot today, without realising this. Change can be a long and opaque process to go through.
What I learned from this process:
It’s ultimately necessary to tolerate discomfort. A photographer needs to learn to survive the lack of inspiration, the struggles and self-doubts, and peaks of demotivation. If looking at your pictures is suddenly becoming hard, uncomfortable, painful even, it is unfortunately all part of the process.
There are two persons in me, and probably in you too: The free spirited shooter living through intuition and mindfulness, and the editor, judging and selecting pictures. Sometimes, these two persons are not aligned and act very differently. My transformation started in 2016-17 - going back to my archives, I discovered many shots aligned with my current vision, completely ignored at the time by the ‘editor’ in me. What I was shooting didn’t align with my judging state of mind, leaving behind several interesting shots as precursors of my work today.
A 2025 image that represents very well my intent today as I document small moments happening in the midst of urban chaos in London - a very different approach to my B&W work.
It’s ok to struggle at times, to find yourself in a plateau. If it’s meant to be, you will find inspiration again. It’s often needed to reconnect with yourself, with this free spirited shooter, to make this happen. But trust me: the other side is really worth it. Growing is the motor of our artistic lives, we simply cannot avoid it.