I bet you thought seriously about angels at least once in your life. (Of course, if you are a religious person this text is certainly not for you, so it’ll be better for you just to check out my photographs. No offense.) By “seriously” I mean not something like “Angels, yes. They’re God’s helpers on Heaven”. I mean sort of what “angels” could ever mean. Were them, I don’t know, the aliens coming to the ancient people and gave them some technology, or maybe it is kind of a symbol of some higher power, or something else, whatever. I personally get back to this question periodically during my entire conscious life. Naturally, I don’t have a solid answer just because I’m not a preacher or a theologist. I’m a simple thinking person. And I had a small incident 25 years back that I still regard as a little wonder. That wasn’t something supernatural, don’t count on it! 🙂 But it was a piece of help that came unexpectedly but exactly right on time from an absolute stranger. I was 15 or 16 and took part in something in the nature of the city’s field-and-track competition among high school students. I was never good at long-distance running so I haven’t an idea how I got there, perhaps our school just couldn’t find enough good runners for their team and therefore they took even me. That race was especially hard for me. Firstly, because I always was a highly responsible person. Respectively, I was doing my best and even more just not to come last. I managed it but of that, I was getting a problem with my breathing. After I crossed the finish line and was slowing my pace I suddenly started feeling an acute pain in my left side with each exhalation like something inside me is going to explode. So, I instinctively stopped letting air out and took an inhale, and after that tried to exhale one more time. Situation repeated. And one more time. I started to panic. Most of all because I realized that I can’t ask for help and even can’t tell what’s wrong with me. So, I was walking far and far from the main crowd, trying to exhale but the mentioned above was repeating time after time. My lungs were getting bigger and bigger, I was exhaling less and less air feeling the same acute pain, and didn’t know what to do. And when I started feeling that already the inhales bringing me pain, and I really thought that I’m going to die right there, in the city’s park, some old person who...
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I don’t know how about you but as for me, I read many times and heard in many movies that the most important task for a person during his (or her) life is to find a vocation, a mission to complete we come here. That’s some sort of mantra for smart and/or spiritualized humans. I personally spent the first 25 years of my life searching for my soulmate. I found her (or more correct to say, she found me), and what has happened next? Do our lives immediately became wonderful? Definitely yes for the first several months but then reality showed up again in all its ugliness. We both still had to earn money for a living doing work not interesting for us, creative persons. Therefore, I pondered what we were missing. At some moment, I had to admit that love is an undoubtedly essential but insufficient thing to be happy. You also have to find a lifetime deed, your vocation. Somehow or other, we spend most part of our lives at work. And if your work only “slowly kills you”, you won’t be happy even being married to a most wonderful person at all. Obviously, finding your mission in this world is a task that not a bit easier than searching for a soulmate! Also because the goal is not only to find but also to turn this passion into your lifetime deed. Truly, a small amount of people is brave enough to do it. Most of us are just keep it as a hobby. And perhaps it works well for some, I don’t know. But it definitely didn’t work for me. And here we came to the thought in the title. Does life become easy and happy, every problem solves by itself, and we only do what we love with great and endless pleasure when we found our mission and turned it into our work? Well, no. You see, our world nowadays is a place full of problems and people that are more or less creative. And if you think that you only have to do what you love just great, become a master in your sphere, and all the rest will come by itself (money even just to pay your bills, recognition from your colleagues, many fans of your art and so on), you are cruelly mistaken. And I’m sorry about that! Life doesn’t become much easier when you do what you love. No higher power starts to help you on your way just for your brave to be yourself and your exceptional determination to your deed. Nothing makes by itself, money doesn’t start to fall...
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I think nobody will argue with it. For me, it was so difficult that I think without my wonderful wife’s financial support I would have already returned to sales and worked in some pitiful store at best. Moreover, in the first half of the year, we were planning to move to another country. Obviously, we couldn’t make it due to the COVID-19. Another dream crashed. Best of all it could be described by the amazing song “Nothing Left To Say” by Imagine Dragons. Every word is just like my life and feelings during this no simple year. http://www.denischurin.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Imagine-Dragons-Nothing-Left-To-Say-kissvk.com_.mp3 2020 also took several greatly talented people who were the landmarks in their spheres. One of them is Sean Connery (I won’t mention the others because they were Russians and you unlikely know them). But as for the creative side of my life, it was a great year. The best so far. I not only took part in an exhibition and got to the final in three photo contests but also have grown very much as a photographer. I compare my photographs taken a year ago to my latest ones and can see an enormous difference. I can even say that I got to the next level. And even more. Exactly this year, I launched my YouTube channel and started to do videography much more seriously. It was a year of immensely huge progress for me. And to walk this year off, I traditionally summing up with nine best photographs. Just like the last year, it is two nines but this time no commercial works at all. All of them were published during the year (but it doesn’t mean all were taken in 2020). The first group is the most liked on my Instagram account (I didn’t even consider Facebook because my photographs have too little attention there). The second one are the best photographs in my opinion. And as always, I believe that all the best is ahead! Thanks to everyone who follows me and liked my photographs! A special, most warm gratitude to those who commented on photographs, watched my videos, rated, and wrote comments on them! You have been really helping and supporting me! Happy New Year and Merry Christmas to everyone, my friends! Take care of yourself and your beloved ones. See you next year! Follow me on YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook. If you want to SUPPORT my YouTube channel or me personally, you can do it here: for the World, for...
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Recently, I have uploaded quite an interesting video on my YouTube channel. Actually, it called “Near The Old Fortress” because it was filmed not far from our local (Leningrad region, Russia) landmark called Krepost’ Oresheck or also known as Shlisselburg Fortress. That’s an ancient Russian stronghold placed on the island in Ladoga lake near the Neva river head. But although this fortress appears in the video and it really looks great, the main and most interesting part of the film to my mind is duck tales caught in the frame. It’s not only a sort of mallard yoga exercises but also a small confrontation between two types of ducks. You can check it by yourself: It was a real pleasure to me to work on this short story and, frankly speaking, I assess it as one of my best videos so far. Therefore, I really hope that you like it either. Follow me on YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook. If you want to SUPPORT my YouTube channel or me personally, you can do it here: for the World, for...
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About an hour ago, I suddenly found out that in September this year I became a finalist of an all-Russian photo contest called “Water of Russia is the water of Victory” which was dedicated to the 75-year anniversary of victory in The Great Patriotic War (in case you don’t know this is a part of World War II which started after the Nazi troops crossed the Soviet Union border in 22nd June 1941 and lasted until Nazi surrender in 8th May 1945). I have participated with my photo of the Osinovetsky lighthouse which is on the Ladoga lakeshore not far from one of the former points of The Road of Life (again, in case you don’t know: The Road of Life was the path for the boats in summer, late spring, and early autumn, and for lorries during winter by which food, medicine, and ammo were delivered to besieged Leningrad, and civil people and wounded soldiers in the opposite direction). Of course, now this place looks absolutely peaceful and even philistine. But if you read any book or watch any movie or footage about the blockade of Leningrad (since 1991 it’s again called Saint-Petersburg), you can clearly imagine all the severity of that time the witness of which was this lighthouse. Follow me on YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook. If you want to SUPPORT my YouTube channel or me personally, you can do it here: for the World, for...
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