Paris Photo '23

Let’s start this one off with just acknowledging that this is just an ordinary blog post. Now I’ve got that out of the way I  can pretend I have something to say while in all honesty I’m a bit dubious about the whole thing.  Funny thing is that writing comes easy. The part where I struggle is  the ‘relevance’ of it all really. Maybe it is about damn time I should be a little less self involved. I mean, I don’t want a blog that reads like a 90’s grunge album. [Soundgarden rules!]

Last July I revisited Australia. This time I traveled out to Adelaide. Ten short days to catch up with family and reconnect, my first trip overseas since I was last there in July of 2020. Lots had changed in three years. We lost people whom we loved dearly and at the same time babies were born left and right. So I brought a Rolleiflex, 12 rolls of B&W film in a lead lined bag and tons of memories still lodged in my head to reflect on while I was there.

After long consideration, I’ve decided to continue with this website. A lot has changed in the past year and a half for the better in my personal life, and now I feel ready to start sharing and exhibiting (online) again. You see, most of my life I live offline. Apart from binging YouTube videos and checking my email, I have no interest in the online world. Especially in the online photography world. That doesn’t mean I am not aware. Frankly, I just find it very formulaic, dull, and creatively very counterintuitive. No hostilities though! I mean dig what you wanna dig man.  You do you. Alright, what does this have to do with the website?  Nothing much really. It just really surprises me the sorta stuff people engage with online is utter dog shite.  So I guess the name [domjoch] still fits. Next year I’ll be 30 years old, but I am still that dumb kid holding a camera. Nothing has changed…much. I found love. I found direction. I found room to grow. As a person & as a photographer. Time off from the website allowed me to assess the situation. It helped me realize I had grown dull and numb. It gave me time to look around and see that everyone on some sort of level is struggling with similar issues. Whether we all know it or not. It has become very clear to me that whatever the online-/ professional photography world considers ‘normal’, ‘accepted’, or ‘the way to go about it’ doesn’t work [for me]. I don’t care if I’ll ever have a career. I don’t care - I just don’t. I care about the people around me & that very much includes the people I photograph. I care about expressing myself and having the liberty to do that in a way that suits me. Hopefully, this provides some context. I didn’t mean to write out a mission statement, and this really isn’t one. The website is back online. That’s all.

Again more of ‘not the same’ as a blog entry. A couple of weeks back I found my old illustration portfolio which I hadn’t seen in years. In 2015, I applied to AKV Sint Joost for a bachelor's course in illustration. At the time, I was 21, had already dropped out of college once, and felt utterly lost. So how about Art School? Seemed like a bright idea at the time. At least I was motivated. Motivated enough to create this small body of work on A4 bleached print paper. Clearly, I didn’t know shit back then (and still don’t now, but that’s beside the point). The only thing that was clear to me is that I aspired to be an artist. Whatever that meant. 

‘Op je hoogtepunt moet je stoppen.’ Ik hoor het mijn aardrijkskundeleraar nog zeggen. Het is een uitspraak die net zo zinloos is als de 6.8 op mijn eindexamen.  Dus wat heeft dit te maken met Baklawai & SOWT in de Altstadt? Niet veel. Althans…