NEW BEGINNING
Last time I wrote in my blog on November 1st back in 2018. Back then I promised I'd be writing more often but it didn't happen.
Life was probably going the way it should have, until we learned about and encountered Covid-19. But probably this won't be a story about how much it changed our lives. And yes, I recommend getting vaccinated to protect yourself and others to return to some type of normalcy in life.
So it turns out that I am currently in the process of my mental health recovery, and in addition to that there are many more different things that I will tell you about below.
I have set up a small studio room outside the city, near the sea, but I would like to say that right by the sea, because I often spend time there.
When it comes to the sea and nature, these two aspects have influenced my vision around photography since the end of time. Nothing inspires me as much as nature, but especially the sea, both calm and wild. That is why I rarely, but from time to time I am forced to come here.
I was thinking for a long time what to write and whether to write at all, or if anyone would read at all, and I thought that I should write at least for my own memories. So I will be happy if you read and leave a message in the comments, even if just an emoji. I myself would like to be more active here and make at least 6 journal entries a year, but will see how much time I will have for that this year. I will not get into the distant past as much as I will just sum up my year 2021.
It's been a year and 2 months since I haven't made any Instagram posts, and I get messages about it almost every week. At times the question "Where are you?" begins to get tiring. I think at this point I could add a story highlight about "where I am" haha.
Besides that I receive a lot of different frequent questions and compliments and things like ''I didn't believe you would reply, etc.'' I don't know why people think that, because I always and still reply to absolutely everyone, unless it's spam. So if you want to talk to me about something or just say "Hi!" don't be shy to drop a line!
Most of all, you probably want to hear where I've been since my social media hiatus, but I'll tell you about it in the end. For now, I'll tell you a little bit about my year 2021 and its aftermath. I hope that this is a start of a tradition to write an overview of my year for each of the coming years.
Let's turn on the time machine and start talking about 2021. It should be mentioned first of all that before the autumn of 2020 my health deteriorated a lot, so I had to think about a drastic lifestyle change. By doing the right things, everything has improved a lot! This was one of the things that affected the course of life right from the beginning.
I'll start with the spring of 2021, because, as you know, nothing happens until then, the seasons change and the weather outside is quite gloomy, so I always just look for the positive indoors. I will write about some of 2021's biggest highlights.
2021
I remember how the year 2021 started, my girlfriend and I ran out in our yard to watch the fireworks at midnight, but there was a complete lockdown in the country, when you are not allowed to leave the house after 11PM so it definitely was an adrenaline rush!
Mostly due to all the restrictions, most of the time was spent at home, in the home office. I remember how terrible the beginning of 2021 was in terms of all this misery, but I'm glad we slowly got out of that. Back in 2020, I never thought that in 2022 we will still be in this situation with another 100 different types of covid, but it's enough about that!
When it comes to a healthy lifestyle, I finally started eating healthier. There wasn't that much of a change except I started eating less meat. To be honest I don't even crave meat as much as I used to. At the moment I choose only quality meat, but the easily available meat packages that are in each and every store shelf don't make me happy. My top dish of 2021 was definitely just salad with tofu.
And so, slowly the year 2021 started to pass by quickly…
CYCLING
I have long enjoyed cycling long before 2021, but I started taking it more seriously in spring when I bought my first professional road bike. This was another reason why I had less time for personal photography. I remember cycling 50 km on the first day, which is not very smart. A well-known professional cyclist told me that even after skipping just a month he starts with 30km… come on Sandis!
I've always enjoyed long rides, so 100 km every ride was a standard for me. 50km or 100km, those were the rides I was going on for the most part. I started to ride at the speed of 23 km per hour, in summer I was able to reach 27 km per hour, but at the end of the summer I did my first cycling marathon at 30 km per hour and it was also my first goal – to ride on average at 30 km per hour, which was a regular thing for me at the end of the summer. My longest trip this year was 150+ km. In the fall, I thought I wanted to step up my bike game and buy an even better bike, and I did! My girlfriend almost killed me, because at that moment there were four bikes in our apartment! Looked like a bike shop. Because the old one was still there, the new one stood next to it, then there was my girlfriend's bike and finally the gravel bike I was shooting for one brand.
I don't want to push the limits too far as I don't intend to have a heart attack or something, but by the end of next year I would like to reach 35 km per hour on average. I wish myself good luck!
NORWAY
In the middle of the summer there was an opportunity to go on a trip to Norway, this was definitely not only one of the biggest highlights of 2021, but overall a highlight of my life. All of this was also documented in photographs. I visited the very north and one of the most famous places in Norway – the Lofoten Islands. Well that was impressive. I mostly traveled by car, but also got to go on a hike to a glacier.
I was in Norway for a full week, so I didn't have time to see much more besides the typical tourist places. If I had more time, I would've definitely gone to lesser known places. Location scouting was also very difficult, because I couldn't understand how it would work in real life, because the mountains there are wild for me as someone who lives in Latvia…
Many thanks to the Latvian roastery Kalve Coffee for providing me with a variety of coffee during the trip. I was making stops to prepare a delicious coffee in the aeropress and enjoying the beautiful nature with a cup of warm coffee.
Getting to experience this on your own skin creates a travel addiction, so I'll take every opportunity to travel in 2022 as well. I'll definitely tell you all about this when I'll slowly start posting Instagram pictures from the trip.
COMMERCIAL PROJECTS / WORK
And now of course – about work, but with a well-deserved rest in the end!
The rest of my 2021 was spent working. I will not talk about this for long. I can call 2021 100% my breakthrough year. The projects that I was working on could be called "Now or never" and the experience gained this year is completely incomparable to everything that has happened to me thus far, but hey, experience is experience, so we must not dismiss what has happened before, because that is how we get to the next level.
I was thinking about the word “'professionalism”, and it doesn't mean much to me unless you're retired. I often see that people call themselves professionals, of course this does not apply to all areas… but in my opinion, every day you learn and learn something new, because we live in the 21st century. And without exaggeration, there is a new innovation that needs to be mastered every day, but many choose to put their so-called boundaries and frames and barely ever step out of their comfort zone. I have always been wondering what their professionalism looks like outside the comfort zone? Worth thinking about. I almost always try to get out of my comfort zone. I have to say that I have never felt that comfortable in the creative environment, even when it seems I know everything, a huge curtain opens up and a new thing appears, and then you feel like a first grade student who has to learn everything from scratch again.
NEW BEGINNING
Now let's cut to the chase! As I said at the beginning, I am currently outside the city and trying to be alone with myself so that I can return to the crazy rhythm of the city.
There's so much I've been doing while I'm living here! There is also a huge to-do list with many more things.
Every day starts with waking up at either 5AM or 5PM, so my routine changes from time to time, but when I'm in my I wake up at 5AM. After getting up, I sip a glass of water and go to the kitchen to make coffee. Regarding coffee, I can't say anything good, unfortunately I couldn't bring my coffee setup with me, because I left it with my girlfriend in town, so I drink very shitty coffee. Overall, in terms of coffee, I will probably be able to tell you something very exciting related to improving my current coffee setup relatively soon. I will have Instagram posts about it, and possibly an interesting blog article. Coffee plays a very important role in my life, and I probably wouldn't be able to survive without it.
I take a cup of coffee with me to check my computer, every morning I watch short NBA clips, read reviews, check memes, NFT's, photos, crypto news and everything else interesting. I used to read the news in the mornings a lot, but now I don't as everything now is about covid and war. That's why for a long time I've replaced all the news sites with Twitter (kudos to Twitter!). You can follow me on Twitter @sandishelvigs, but I read more than I ever publish anything.
As I have been completely disconnected from all my daily duties and work for a while now, I have to find another way to occupy myself in the meantime. Most of the day I work on improving myself in digital photography, of course I also try to work on the technical side of photography and not forget about it at the same time.
Mostly I am looking at the future, what I can improve and what "tools" I need in terms of both – technique and post-processing, because it is the thing that I continue to grind on every day for 2-5 hours. Besides all this, I am working on more personal things. As an example, last week I took my home office desk and decided to remodel and improve it a bit. In general, it took a whole week, 5-8 hours a day + painting at the end. Overall, I am very satisfied with the result.
Currently, negotiations with 2022 partners are also actively taking place, I am planning more personal projects for 2022 as well. What I have so far is already quite epic! I look forward to making them come to life one by one soon.
The rest of the time I spend working on myself – riding my bike indoors, going outdoors for daily walks or reading books. But in the evening I like to sip a glass of wine by candlelight. But now it's time to write why I haven't posted anything for a whole year, and why I've disappeared from the city.
P.S. I highly recommend my late night evening jazz playlist. Check it out!
CREATIVE BURNOUT
As you can read above, a lot happened, but mostly work put an end to everything. Let's call it real – I had a Burnout. Yes, exactly, I have a complete burnout. I wouldn't say it's as crazy as it sounds, because I haven't lost my desire to take photos. I just have lost my love for photography on a more personal level. That's why I did not touch my personal archive more than once this year, although the archive is very large! And the resources are what I've always wished for.
All of this can be explained by the fact that for the first time in my 3-year freelance career in 2021 I was faced with a substantial amount of work. I do not regret anything and I am very happy about the huge global projects that I had the opportunity to work on. I am grateful for every opportunity. The experience I gained this year is indescribable. I am also ready to work even tomorrow when it comes to photography.
I am very happy that I started to do sports regularly in the early spring. I really recommend this to absolutely everyone who is in a similar situation and is unable to disconnect from work for a moment. The main thing is to find a niche in sports that you like. Sports really saved me from the very last stage of burnout.
Therefore, I am here, alone with myself, to regain my passion for photography even after work. I want to be able to take photos just for my own happiness. Whenever I pick up my camera I don't want it to remind me of work again. I hope I'll be able to reignite my good old love for photography. At the moment I am trying to work my hardest to return very soon with great force and with a newfound fondness for photography.
Plans for 2022? For now let's keep it a secret…