“Passion” an article published by Michel Khoury in 2009 about his start with photography

Passion

Excerpts from thoughts, written by an amateur photographer about the beginning of his relationship with the camera and how it was able to change his view of the components of nature

It started when my move to live in a coastal city coincided with the beginnings of my attachment to the hobby of photography, and at first I did not know the reason why I was attracted to this tool.

A short period after arriving in this city where the houses share the sand of the sea, I began to excel in taking pictures of it at all times and through the seasons and their fluctuations. It became part of my daily bread, to the point that after one year, sixty-five percent of my total photos became about the sea or related to it. I discovered then that I admired it and all its rituals and ever-changing moods.

I, who do not know how to swim, have never looked at the sea in this emotional way, a way that makes me forgive it for everything it does, even if it was a tsunami. I have now reached the point of certainty. I am passionate about the sea.

And when I went away from the sea and up to the high mountains, I saw things that had never caught my attention before. Of course, it was not the first time I had climbed a mountain, but it was the first time with my new one-eyed companion. Now I heard voices calling me from within the mountain forests, stop here, contemplate my charms, reveal the secrets of my beauty.

I could not help but respond. Yes, I answered all the calls without objection until I was drowned in the charms of the mountains and the cedars of the mountains, in the pines of the mountains and the cypresses of the mountains, in the snow of the mountains and the fog of the mountains.

I thought then that my passion for the sea had turned into a passion for the mountains, from their slopes that wear their eternal green dress to their peaks that boast of their proximity to the clouds, crowned with a dazzling crown that no whiteness can match.

Yes, I am passionate about mountains

But wait, now I see flowers differently, I see a new hope in the buds that are about to open, I can almost hear them promising me a beauty that is added to their purity, and a fragrance that is added to the freshness of their childhood.

I watch them as they wake up early to receive the first warm ray and to continue chasing it and feeding on its strength until the sun gets tired and weakens at the end of the day. Am I admiring these colorful little things and seeing them as I have never seen them before?

I think it is more than admiration, it is a new passion, but, has it cancelled out the rest and replaced them? Or is it a partner? This question has been going around in my head for several months, and I am between yes and no.

As I descended into the world of flowers, I had approached another accompanying world, the world of small creatures with many secrets, from delicate butterflies and their stages of formation and growth to spiders and their intricate way of weaving their special hunting webs, passing through the many species that differ according to the seasons and regions.

Once I was waiting for the sun to reach the horizon to take some pictures in the public park, and while I was leaning on a small bush, that sprawling spider caught my attention with all its sacred, evil beauty. It was no more than a few centimeters long, but it was enough to make any human like me step back a little. I am still waiting for the sunlight to fall at the right angle, but not for the sunset itself, but to photograph this killer in its most beautiful form using the golden sunlight. How could I not, when I fell in love with it at first sight.

After that, I began to see small creatures wherever I went. Did they suddenly appear, or did I begin to see the world differently? A question added to the previous question, but without a definitive answer.

And with time, my relationship with nature turned into a relationship with light, that light that changes momentarily, momentarily to the point that the moment I press the button above, that light becomes a thing of the past, and now before me is a new light with all its qualities and color, that light without which we would not have seen all these natural wonders.

I began to chase the light from one place to another, wishing to nest between the folds of the leaves that glow brilliantly when the sunlight hits them, wishing to be it, that golden ray at the end of the day that dresses everything it encounters in a golden robe that lasts for a few minutes and disappears, leaving everything in the dream of wearing it again the next day.

It took me more than six years to reach a convincing answer to my questions. I was getting closer to it little by little the more I took pictures and the more I merged with nature. I am passionate about light and its association with nature with all its components. This association and blending would not have allowed me to present my own vision of it except by making it pass through that lens, and that lens has now, after I reached certainty, become a representation and response to my vision of light and nature and presents it as I see them. This is the reason that attracted me to the camera since I was young, and only now have I begun.