Balance
A Photographer’s Story
by TIMO MUDGE
Who Am I?
My name is Timo. I am originally from the UK, but I have spent most of my adult life traveling the world, both for work and for pleasure. Most recently, I find myself at home on the Balearic Island of Mallorca in Spain.
What is my journey to balance?
I have been interested in photography for the best part of 20 years now. Originally, it was just a hobby—lifestyle snaps—which grew into a keen passion for the "street photography" genre. It was during these formative years, spending hours upon hours shooting on the streets of the UK and Europe, that I found my "eye" and my style, developed my skills, and really focused my creative instinct. This was not an easy task, and it's something that I offer constant care and attention to growing.
While photography was a keen passion of mine for a long time, it came and went in fleeting glances of inspiration and creativity, to numbness and lack of focus. I often would wonder to myself, how can something that brings me so much joy also bring me so many questions that I didn't yet have the answer to? Is this the journey of most "photographers" out there, I often wondered.
Then, following some major life changes and challenges, it came to me: balance. I didn’t have it in my life—not once, not ever. I was always a man who fascinated deeply on my current task or novel activity, but then the focus would waver and my passion subside. Like waves in the ocean, peaks and troughs, coming and going without any real rhyme or reason.
For most of my adult life, I embarked on a career as a professional deep-sea diver (Saturation Diver). A career that I started in my early 20s, and which consumed my life. It was this career, together with my specific personality and mind pattern, that made me simply unable to offer myself balance in any aspect of my life—personal or professional. Coming and going to work, here and there, intensity to stillness. It was then I realized that actually, I needed to change my focus. Not look at these activities—work, photography, fitness, travel, etc.—as intense departures from my reality, but ways to offer myself balance and clarity. And if those things were not offering me such alignment and reward, perhaps it was time to change. And so I did change—I quit my job as a saturation diver two years ago after almost 17 years committed and dedicated to this career. I refocused my life, and I picked up my camera as a tool that can offer me stability and balance in my life, along with other healthy and rewarding practices.
So, I have my camera to thank, in a way. It was hours holding this metal object in my hand, shooting images, eating images—that led me on this journey to ask myself those important questions. It has brought me to where I am today. Here & Now.
I am very lucky today to work professionally as a photographer for numerous clients around the world. But more importantly, I just pick up my camera and shoot as therapy—to restore balance into my life through the lens of my camera and a roll of film loaded inside.
