Zoom in. Breath out.

I've known anxiety as long as I can remember. Sometimes it was just a thought moving past in the endless stream of thoughts. Sometimes it was so intense, it feels like there will never be any happiness in my life anymore. For me, as a person and as a photographer it is very important to try and live in the moment more and let go of the past and the future as much as I can. So that's one reason for me to be dealing with photography, but that reason is just one word in this whole story.

I've mentioned this before and I will again and again - my life and my creativity depend on each other. I think about both more or less constantly, I think about life, happiness, creativity, expression and anything that I associate with it and sometimes I manage to not let that stream swallow me and leave me paralyzed, dumb, deaf and blind.

And actually, create something.

Don't get me wrong. I need that stream. I need all of the 60,000 thoughts we have on average every day. Make that 90,000 for me. Most of these are associations, thoughts that arise triggered by an input. And I am an input junkie. I see, I read, I hear, I feel, I use any kind of sense to get it all in, to try and understand and not miss anything and know I will.

But with all this in my head, with that circus ride that is going on up there all my waking hours, I wouldn't be able to find that moment when I need to release the shutter or better let the moment find me.

That's where - again - meditation comes into play. I need to be in that moment right here and right now. This one. And this one. Because that's all we have anyway and that's the one moment in time I can do something about my life. The one moment when life actually happens. I need to be open to that moment, observe what's happening without judging it. I don't need to evaluate whether this is the moment to take the photo or the next one. To just be there in this state and to wait is all I need to do. Sometimes nothing happens and there just will be no shot. But when it is there, when the planets align when everything falls into place and you as the person you are in that very moment with everything you have ever seen, read, heard and felt are the soul that will be receptive to that moment, the picture will beg you to be taken.

I believe all of us can come up with images that nobody else could produce, even if we'd be standing next to each other in the same spot at the same time. My moment will always be different than yours. As my life is. As my thoughts are. As everything me is.