Method Notes No. 3: On being on the road in photography

The world of photography is vast.

And although I've been moving within it for years, I know I'll never fully explore it. It's too much, too vast, too diverse – a universe of shapes, colors, moments, and meanings.

I don't mean traveling with suitcases and plane tickets, but traveling through photography. The movement through the different forms of expression, genres, and perspectives of photography. There's nature and landscape photography, architecture, street photography, and fashion photography. Images of happiness, of fleeting moments. And those of suffering, of stagnation, of things that endure.

Each of these fields feels like its own continent. Some are clearly defined, with their own rules, styles, and cultures. Others blend seamlessly into one another. And within these continents, there are countries, cities, places—photographic spaces that shape and attract people in different ways.

My home is in the land of portraits.

This is where my roots lie. This is where I know my way around. I know how a face changes when it begins to tell a story. I recognize subtle movements, moods, little truths. And little lies. Sometimes I travel from here to other realms: to the world of reportage or landscape photography. I sail out to sea, let myself drift, see new things – only to return with the feeling that this is exactly where I belong.

Not because it's more beautiful here than anywhere else. But because I feel a sense of belonging here. Because I understand the language here. The faces, the stories, the unspoken words between glances. Portrait photography isn't a genre for me. It's my home.

And yet, I'm always drawn back out. To the streets of other genres. To where life is in motion. Then I take something with me—a kind of souvenir—one experience richer. As I write these lines, countless things are happening simultaneously. Somewhere, someone is jumping over a puddle. A child is running through a sunbeam. A woman is gazing thoughtfully out of a café window at the street. And these are just three of the tens of thousands of moments that are happening right now—and will soon be gone again.

I know I can't see them all.

There are too many. Too fleeting. Too alive. Some last only a fraction of a second – and then they're gone. And yet there's this quiet longing to be a part of it. Not to want to capture everything, but to look. To remain open.

Perhaps that is the true purpose of photography: not to capture the world completely, but to remain attentive to what we otherwise cannot see. To what happens when others have looked away.

And perhaps it's not even about taking pictures for me, but about learning to be mindful and to anticipate.