Enchanted cameras and the essence of beauty

Written on February 1, 2024 in Bali, Indonesia

I am a huge believer in magic. I think it’s so sad that as adults we stop using our imagination and stop believing in miracles. We replace movies about magic and mystery for movies about war and struggle. We stop reading fantasy novels and start reading endless books on productivity and financial success. Honestly, I feel like life on Earth would be a dreadful place without magic and opening my mind to the possibility that there might be so much more in this world (and universe) than that I am aware of, makes life all the more interesting! In the end, we choose what we believe, so why not believe in something that brings hope, wonder and excitement into our lives?!

I started reading fantasy novels again last year (ACOTAR, anyone?) and it’s safe to say it has changed my life. It happened to be at the same time when I started to become aware of the fact that I am not just flesh and bones, but a multidimensional soul, with countless lifetimes and experiences on this planet and in other realms, and that I am connected and One with many beings in and out of this world. While reading of magic and special powers of the characters in the books, all I could think was that they weren’t really ‘fantasy’ books, but that there is much more truth to it than we think.

At the moment I am reading Harry Potter and I particularly love Mr. Weasley (father of Ron Weasley, best friend of Harry Potter), who works for the Ministry of Magic in the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts office. For anyone who hasn’t read/watched Harry Potter or needs their memory freshen up: Muggles are those who do not possess magical abilities and Muggle Artefacts are normal objects, such as cars or phones, that have been enchanted by a witch or wizard. Mr. Weasley’s job is to find enchanted objects and make sure they don’t end up in Muggle hands, so the world of magic remains a secret.

I like to think that there is one enchanted object that Mr. Weasley and the Ministry of Magic decided could stay in plain view, as no Muggle realised this object was actually enchanted! And this magical object is ….. *insert drum roll* A CAMERA! Okay, stay with me here. This is how Muggles, unaware of magic, would describe a camera: a rectangle box that captures the material world. This is how witches and wizards would describe a camera: a rectangle box that captures light, energies and frequencies or the essence of the material world. As a professional photographer, who has spent hundreds of hours seeing people and the world through my lens, I can only agree with the magical definition of cameras.

In my last blog post (click here to read) I explained how photography has helped me to make the transition from the eyes of my mind to the eyes of my heart. The eyes of my mind would look at the woman in front of my lens and capture her in a way that made sure the images would be up to society’s standards of beauty (you know: fit, skinny, perfect skin and hair, etc.) Therefore, the eyes of my mind preferred to shoot with ‘real models’, as they fitted in my conditioned (but untrue) beliefs and perception of beauty. For a long time I didn’t want to shoot with non-models, as I secretly didn’t believe I could take beautiful photos of them, or at least not the kind of photos that I saw other photographers and brands in the industry take.

However, the more the eyes of my heart opened, the more I started seeing the essence of beauty beyond just the physical body. I remember very clearly the first time this happened. I was doing a portrait shoot with a ‘regular woman’, as in ‘not a professional model’, and at this time my judging mind was still very active. I rated the woman’s looks as average and to be honest, I wasn’t very excited for this shoot. But when I looked at her through my viewfinder I was shocked: I somehow saw her completely different. Nothing about her physical features had changed, but she no longer looked average, she looked absolutely stunning! When I lowered my camera to see what happened, I saw her as how I originally judged her, but every time I looked through my viewfinder, I couldn’t help but notice that she was radiating something that touched me deeply: true beauty.

This is how I believe photography has helped me open the eyes of my heart. Seeing women through my lens, and experiencing the magic of cameras, helped me to set aside my judgmental mind and see the unique beauty of someone’s soul. It helped me realise that there is no difference between the physical and the non-physical, between matter and spirit, between our soul and our body. I learned that I need to consult my heart when I take photos, not my mind, as they have different and conflicting ways of defining beauty.

What I believe and has been my experience, is that a camera offers us a chance to see beyond the veil, to see the essence of beauty flowing through every being. When we connect with our heart and use our soul to take a photo, we are not just photographing the physical body, but also the non-physical body, which is the origin of our beauty. At the core, we are a soul, we are sacred, divine, a fractal of God and our body is a physical representation of our soul. This automatically makes every cell of our body sacred, divine, beautiful, no matter how we look like. We have just been made to believe otherwise - that our physical features define our beauty - but it’s time to let go of this illusion and the magical cameras can help us do this.

I want to end this blog post by saying something about my judgement towards the woman I shot with. See, you might think how horrible I was to think she looked average and believe me, when I became aware of my own judgement towards myself and other women and how I measured beauty, I wasn’t exactly proud of myself. But after a lot of research on the subject, I learned all of us humans are basically brainwashed to believe in a false beauty. We have forgotten that beauty is something to be felt with our hearts, that it bypasses our conditioned mind and directly touches our soul. The eyes of our hearts have been closed so we can not perceive true beauty anymore, something that we all long for as it’s an energy we remember from Home, and as beauty is just a different expression of Love.

This is a super interesting topic that I think is very important for everyone to know about, so we can start to question our own perception and belief system about beauty and start to activate and use our senses when we look at the world. I will dive deeper into this topic in another blog post. For now, next time when you look through the viewfinder of your camera, I invite you to let go of your thinking mind, feel into your body and ask your heart when it’s the right time to press the shutter. Instead of taking the photo (using control), practice receiving the photo and surrender to the flow of beauty and love that wants to come through. Open up your mind to the magic of your camera, see beyond what you initially see, and capture the beauty of someone’s soul.

I want to thank the Witch or Wizard who enchanted my camera so I can see into your magical world. I also would like to thank Mr. Weasley and the Ministry of Magic and the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts office for not confiscating my camera and erasing my memory, I promise I won’t tell anyone how it really works.