The Landing
I Stopped Looking for the Shortcut
a feeling after nearly 3000 skydive jumps
For the last few years, I thought I was looking for freedom.
Looking back, I think I was often looking for intensity.
There is nothing wrong with intensity.
Intensity can be beautiful.
It can wake us up.
It can make us feel alive.
But lately I realized something that changed everything:
I often confused intensity with depth.
Not only in photography.
In relationships.
In desire.
In attention.
In the stories I told myself.
In the life I was building.
The photo above says more than I can.
For years I kept jumping.
Looking for the next feeling.
The next rush.
The next spark.
The next proof that I was alive.
But there is no shortcut to a meaningful life.
There is no shortcut to connection.
No shortcut to trust.
No shortcut to love.
No shortcut to becoming yourself.
A parachute jump can be breathtaking.
But it is not the same as climbing a mountain.
One gives you a moment.
The other gives you a journey.
Recently, a person entered my life and touched me deeply.
Maybe not in the way I first believed.
But enough to help me see something I had been avoiding for a long time.
I knew certain things no longer felt right.
I knew it.
Yet I kept telling myself:
"Keep going."
Today I finally stopped.
Not because anyone judged me.
Not because photography failed me.
Not because the past was wrong.
I'm grateful for all of it.
Photography became my language.
It saved me more than once.
But somewhere along the way, I stopped listening to what my own language was trying to tell me.
This is not a goodbye to photography.
It is a goodbye to the parts of my life that no longer feel true.
The shortcuts.
The noise.
The endless search for intensity.
I stopped looking for the shortcut because I finally remembered what I was looking for.
Something real.
Something alive.
Something true.
The world doesn't need more images.
It needs more reasons to feel.
Tomorrow I leave for Mallorca.
When I return, there may be a different version of me standing behind the camera.
Not a finished one.
Not a wiser one.
Just a more honest one.
For now, I am simply grateful.
Grateful for the lessons.
Grateful for the people.
Grateful for the jumps.
And even more grateful that I finally feel ready to walk.
🤍
Images and Text © Sascha van der Werf
