This short photo story takes visual cues from unrelated imagery to pull together a familiar narrative. Familiar at least to those of us who dream big and long for a way to bring those big ideas to fruition.
You shine your light through some small piece of life and a big idea reveals itself. You start to dream and see how big it could be. It gets you excited.
Your journey has begun. You are on the top deck, up there with your dreams, looking down on the real world. It’s a love affair at this stage.
In this state your inner and outer world are moving in the same direction. This is a very happy feeling. Look at that grin!
Once you are back down on the ground and look back up at your dreams and ideas, doubt creeps in. They don’t look the same from down here. Their light is obscured. There are so many options and ways you could go with it. You are uncertain.
All options have meaning. You are excited, flitting here and there. Mixed up between the real, the shadows and the reflections. It’s not easy to make a choice. It’s a dance but you feel you are missing something central.
So you consult people in the real world who seem like they know what they’re doing. People in the industry who can maybe make decisions for you, but instead overwhelm you with the technical.
You look to the past to see what came before. Hoping that you can recreate a previous success, but it’s hard to relate to these examples frozen in time.
Now when you look up at your dream it is daunting. It carries the weight of the past and is broad with technical and earthly realities that it needs to live up to.
All of a sudden your idea seems small. You can see how the world might look down on your little light, which once seemed so high and pioneering.
To look up at it now seems scary. The idea is almost imprisoned and you aren’t sure how to get it back to that starting mindset. So you descend to do the practical work on it.
With so much to busy yourself in the mundane realities of implementing your idea, the lofty ideal is ignored.
Then you realise the void left by just focusing on practical realities. It keeps you so close that you can only see the details, not looking at your dream as a whole. You look up to rediscover it.
You have turned a corner, matured in your thinking and realised some independence. The weight of judgement is now behind you.
Now, as you look past the earthly reflections of your dream, you see it properly, right in front of you. Your passion is ignited.
It looks vast, but the path is clear and lit all the way. The path towards implementation now mirrors the idealistic vision. It looks manageable and you know what to do.
You make progress, even the details appear large, but now they seem filled with potential rather than problems.
You have bought your own dreams down to the world in your own way, with innocence strength and self confidence. They are free, you are free.
These images were taken from at Birmingham attractions. Locations include the Museums Collection Centre, New Art Gallery Walsall and Aston Hall.