PETER KAMAL

These are some farewell strips from my favourite views of Passau, the city I spent my last five years in. This was undoubtably too long. No young person should ever spend so much time tied to one place. Every decision I made was rational in itself; but taken together they produced an irrational result. Lesson learned.

 

Passau really made it hard to love it - no noteworthy cultural events, very little possibilities to see beautiful landscapes without a car, the vibe of a city that is proud to be a village. I never felt like I was living there because of Passau, but in spite of it. This related especially to my photography; while I have developed into an acceptable photographer in my time here, I have taken the truly good photos somewhere else. This is very uninspiring terrain for someone with my choice of motives. I felt hindered in my art.

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This changes now. I will not live this long in any place for a while. I will move outside of Germany this year and I don't know if I'm coming back. I will only ever live in cities that I like for the cities, not just for whatever I do there. And I will only live in cities that fuel my photography.

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However, I still have to acknowledge that I did in fact have a good time here. I found and lost love, friendships, passions and routines. I'm coming out of this with a clear sense of myself, more friends than I thought I'd ever have, passions for coffee, running, longboarding, bluegrass, natural wine and philosophy and lastly, a degree that hopefully enables me to make some sort of positive impact. These have been shaping years and I am thankful for having lived them.