I've stopped questioning what am I doing with my photographs. I'm allowing myself to be guided by intuition, to be messy, and figure things out as I go.
This is not so dissimilar to the way I've done things my whole life. The difference now is that I'm owning it.
I'm owning my processes–yes, in plural.
It demands being called out, shamelessly. Acknowledging the humanity in between it all. The sekala and the niskala of the Balinese.
From the ethereal to the earthly, I find myself constantly traversing through identities–archetypes, if you will–on a daily basis.
I used to think this was wrong. That I had to stick to the one and only Me. But after having as the question, "who's me?," over and over, for years, with no clear results, I have to admit defeat and surrender to the multidimensionality of my being.
Similarly, Bali is regarded through many different lenses.
Depending on who's looking at it, Bali can be a paradise, a pot of gold, or a hellish tourist trap.
As I like to remind myself in these situations, Truth is somewhere in the middle.
When I'm out there in the streets, camera in hand, ascribing to a particular identity doesn't serve me.
Anything I predispose myself to, I find. If I look for Peace, I find Peace. If I look for Chaos, I find Chaos.
So I choose to find Beauty.
Introducing: my latest pair.
Taken around the area of Petulu and Junjungan, February 2025, where I've been living for the past 2+ years.
The offerings, once meticulously arranged and imbued with intention, now wilt and spill over the edges of an organik trash bin. A shrine, lovingly adorned, sits in the midst of rusted tools of a bengkel.
Bali has a way of dissolving rigid categories, revealing everything as fluid. The sacred doesn’t exist in opposition to the mundane; it is woven into it. It embraces the mess, the overlap, the rawness of existence.
I’m not searching for nostalgia or spectacle. I’m not hunting for the Bali that tourists dream of or the Bali that expats lament as lost. I’m simply witnessing. Following my own instinct and responding to what calls me. Sometimes that means an intricate ceremony unfolding in a temple courtyard. Other times, it’s a quiet corner of a mechanic’s workshop, where a golden cloth, weathered by time, still holds the imprint of reverence.
High-resolution versions are available for paid Patreon members.
Your support there helps me keep creating in my own way—without diluting my vision, without chasing trends, without turning my work into content.
If you resonate with my approach, I invite you to be part of it.
With love,
Sergio.
