Why do I photograph?

I’ve asked myself this question a lot. Between 2005 and 2009, I used photography as a tool for documentation. This coincided with the birth of our first child and my years in print journalism (2000 to 2007). Then I cast photography to the dark confines of the attic. During the subsequent years, I found solace in the moving image.

That changed at the end of 2024 — a good 20 years since I first took up the camera.

Today, photography has once again become a tool for exploration, but instead of looking outward to document the exterior, this time around, I use photography to delve within — my emotions, my feelings and reactions to the people around me and the events in my life. It has become a window into my mind, a meditation, if you will. The images that present themselves are an abstraction of my mind space.

I photograph what I see, to come face-to-face with that which is within me. There are days when my mind is blank. There are days filled with fear. Fear of the unknown, the Dark, the Future. And so it is on the outside.

A Photograph for me, is a window, where seeing the outside is perceiving within.

– Gasper D’Souza (2025)