Surrealistic

Surrealism is a bridge between the hidden world of the unconscious mind and the waking world we navigate every day. It captures the depths of psychology, exploring introspection and the dreamscape where reality dissolves into desires and fears. In this fluid space, the boundaries between the inner self and external society blur, revealing truths about identity, conflict, and freedom that remain invisible in daylight.

By unraveling the logic of dreams and the subconscious, surrealism challenges the rigid structures of real society, its norms, politics, and hierarchies... inviting us to question what is real, what is imagined, and how both shape who we are.

I’m really drawn to photography that dives into surrealism and psychology because it lets me explore things beyond what we usually see the hidden feelings, dreams, and thoughts that shape us but aren’t always obvious. It gives me a lot of space and freedom to do whatever I want in a picture. Making the invisible visible would I say. It’s like a way to connect deeper with ourselves and the world.

"Lost in the crowd, yet engulfed by emptiness."

You feel so alone, even though the world is full of people. How can it be that it is precisely in the midst of the crowd that the emptiness cries out loudest? I often laugh because it is easier than showing how deep the sadness within me is. But sometimes I want to shed my tears in secret, in a world where I am not allowed to be myself. A room full of people, and yet an empty soul.

It feels as if the closeness of others is slowly draining my happiness, the more people there are around me, the more I lose myself. I long to love, to truly love, but often the most precious thing I have is taken from me: the ability to trust and open up. Instead, fear grows, the fear of truly being there, just as I am, and the fear of being disappointed.

And in the end, loneliness remains, immovable and heavy, even when I thought I could rely on others. Because in the end, we are alone: alone in shaping our lives, alone in finding the strength to save ourselves or lose ourselves.

In the midst of all these people, in the midst of this abundance, I seek warmth, that genuine, living warmth that my heart so desperately desires. But how can I fill this emptiness without bleeding out every time, without being sucked dry again by the coldness that often lurks behind closeness?

"Free to fly, unless someone else decides otherwise."

They say we are free.
Free to choose, free to live, free to dream. But the freedom they speak of is measured, tamed, and labeled.
A promise written on paper, not etched into the skin. We stand on a playing field that does not belong to us. Our steps are steered, our voices dimmed, our wings made of wire.

Freedom... it was once a wingbeat at dawn, an untamed thought, a breath without fear.
Today, it is an illusion, sold in gleaming images, hidden behind rules, lost in noise and control.

We take it from oursleves, no one but us... quietly, systematically, until we ourselves believe we never possessed it.
We clip our wings in the hope we won’t notice, so we may never even know
what it means to fly.

And yet, deep within us,
it still flickers... like a spark beneath the ash.
And perhaps…
that is the beginning.

"Wrapped in Light, Detached from Life"

One only chases the new now, that dopamine rush coursing through our veins,
that fleeting feeling that makes the heart race.
Lost in the intoxication of the moment,
we forget where true beauty resides.

Blind to what surrounds us,
we no longer see the quiet poetry
in the everyday, the familiar,
in the breath of trees, in the smile of light.

Instead, we reach
for the next, the untouched,
out of curiosity or selfishness?
Who can say.

It seems so tempting, so shiny,
and yet it makes us forgetful.
We leave behind
what was already enough,
what was beautiful enough.

What once sufficed, what once filled us completely,
we now prefer to swipe away.

Are we still seen as human beings, or only as objects in a shop window of society, with price tags on our souls, as if our dreams could be converted into currency and our hearts rented out by the hour? As if emotions could be weighed, as if pain had a market value, as if dignity and Hope is a negotiating tool in a system that prioritizes wealth over compassion.

Why does money today buy everything we are?

Our laughter, our silence, our small dreams, our big hopes.

We are replaced, evaluated, subdued, not by chains, but by contracts, not only by violence, but by indifference.

As if the material carried more weight than love, more brilliance than dignity, more power than a sincere heart.

And so one must ask: are we still human, or only shadows in a system that drains us until we forget who we truly are?

"How much is a soul worth in a world of transactions?"

“Same Blood, Different Bullsh*t”

Beneath all the colors, beneath the layers of skin and names, we are the same. Human beings of flesh and blood, with hearts that beat, with dreams that guide us, sometimes gentle, sometimes fierce.

We wear emotions like invisible garments: joy, fear, love, pain, binding us together and yet pulling us apart.

Within us live strengths that can move mountains, but also shadows that can bring us down. We carry flaws, edges and corners, stories unseen by anyone but ourselves.

And yet these differences are not walls, but puzzle pieces of a greater picture. For beneath all that divides us, beneath skin color, origin, and words, we are human. Equal and vulnerable, filled with longing for closeness, for understanding, for recognizing the other within ourselves.

If only we could finally see this, prejudice would fall, boundaries would vanish, and we would begin to truly understand one another.

"Once upon a time, when voices spoke, we believed in truth and carried yesterday’s wisdom... now algorithms shout, we scroll through lies, and call today’s fake news our gospel"

We live in a world full of comparisons, in a time where lies disguise themselves as truths, spreading fast and believed even faster. False news becomes collective fear, a truth that isn’t one, an ending to a path that was never ours to walk. Our lives become a shadow under expectations, under the constant fear of not being enough, of not being what we could truly be. We say farewell to our real selves just to belong. “I have to follow this trend, otherwise I’m worth nothing.” “I have to have this, be that, fulfill everything, else I’m no one.” And in the process we forget that we don’t have to prove anything at all. We lose ourselves in a virtual world that isn’t even real, that isn’t even important. When did we forget how to tell truth from lies? When did we start believing false reports not even written by the hands of real journalists? We run away from ourselves, away from the truth, away from what truly makes us who we are.

“May I Find My Light Again, Beneath the Dreams That Society Set on Fire”

Sometimes everything burns, not suddenly, but slowly, in every sentence that tells you who you should be, in every gaze that measures you against a standard you never chose. The dreams, first shining, then controlled, then controlling. They once stood for you, now they stand against you. And while everything around you turns to embers, there remains a ladder, no safety rope, no guarantee, only effort, honesty, your only way. It is hard to climb with burned feet, but standing still means leaving yourself in the flames. So you go, not because you are strong, but because you want it to end differently. At the top there is no promise, only air, and maybe a light that you never lost, only hidden under everything that was forced upon you, hidden in the haze of these flames that bring you to where you can finally breathe fresh air again. And maybe that alone is enough not to give up.

"The whispers within, guiding us astray, drowning our true identity in a sea of self-doubt."

Inside each of us live many, voices that whisper, others that scream, some that stay silent because we make them silent. There is the child who still cries because no one held them when they fell. And the dreamer who lies awake at night because they know their longing has no space in this world of duty and achievement. There is the angry one who holds herself together every day so that no one calls her "hysterical." And the doubter who questions everything, except the why of their own silence. We carry them all, the strong, the weak, the wounded, the voiceless, the brave, and the hidden. A whole mosaic of selves that rarely get to shine all at once. For we learn early, do not show too much, laugh even when you break, suppress what does not fit into the image the world wants of you. And so we tie ourselves together into a version of us that can be endured, that works, that adapts. But under the skin, a sea simmers, a whole cosmos of unheard stories, unlived feelings, suppressed truths. Perhaps true humanity is not about defining oneself, but about allowing oneself to be many, fragile and angry, bright and dark, calm and full of noise. For only those who meet themselves in all voices can truly be whole.

NKL