7:00 am, the alarm clock sounds. You listlessly turn it off. It’s another day and you couldn’t care less. It’s time to get up and start getting ready. 7:20 am, you’re in the shower. As the stream of water slides over your body, you start thinking about all the things you have to do today. You’ve been up for twenty minutes and you’re already overwhelmed. 7:35 am, you’re already late, you’ll have to take your breakfast on the go. You run to the bus stop. It’s delayed, of course. 8:18 am, you’re eighteen minutes late; you’ll probably get scolded by the supervisor. You go to your desk and start working on the pile of tasks that have been accumulating in the past days. As the hours go by, your mind starts rambling and you start wondering how you ended up here, in a job you despise that consumes all your time and leaves you stressed out and exhausted. 7:00 pm, you should be home now, but you haven’t finished all the urgent things you must have ready for tomorrow. 8:05 pm, you’re finally free to go home and rest. Well, not really. You have so many chores back at home. If you hurry, you might be able to take a long bath and go to sleep early. 01:00 am, finally, time to sleep. You lay in your bed and while your eyes begin to close, you meditate on how just a couple years ago you were a fun and frisky young woman with not so many responsibilities. What happened? … 7:00 am, the alarm clock sounds.
Sounds familiar? Most of the time we’re so eager to start our independent lives with our own rules that we put all our focus on achieving it. However, we lose track of other important aspects of life, like living the present, having fun, and more importantly, enjoying our time in this world. We forget to balance our lives. It’s no secret that our generation faces the most difficult and competitive labor conditions. Companies are much more demanding, and if you want to succeed, you’ll have to sell your soul to the endeavor. Since we spend most of our time at work or school, the internet and social media have become our way to socialize; in that way, many see in this platforms the opportunity to live a double life. Contrary to this, photographer and model Nicoline Aagesen creates images that show the joys and careless moments we all should experience.
Aagesen’s images are here to tell us that life shouldn’t be taken that seriously, that nothing is written, and therefore, we shouldn’t focus only on one thing, but experience life at its most. With provocative photographs that are not digitally modified, she tries to emulate life itself. No one can be absolutely perfect and mistakes happen. The trick is how we take those mistakes and what we learn from them.
She tries to give us one of the most important lessons in life: we should pay more attention to what makes us happy, what pleases us, and more importantly, what makes us the person we want to be. We don’t have to follow what people and society expect from us, and beauty standards shouldn’t be the ruler that measures us. The fact that she doesn’t do any sort of retouching to her images is her way of tell us that perfection isn’t something we should aim for. On the contrary, we should embrace those flaws that make us unique.
Nicoline Aagesen’s playful and provocative photographs are her way of expressing that humor should be a constant in our lives and, more importantly, that it doesn’t matter how bad things might be, there will always be a reason to be happy and have fun. When we lose that ability to find excitement and joy in things, our lives star getting bitter. We’ve grown to believe that we have to reach certain goals at a determined age, and that pressure makes us forget many crucial aspects of life.
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Our youth is one of the best moments in our lives. It’s the decisive moment when we mold the foundations of what we aspire to become. It’s a time of discoveries, hopes, expectations, and introspection. For that reason, one of the most important things is to enjoy this time and have fun. We should all stop tormenting about what’s the future going to be like. Instead, work on yourself so you have the tools you need to face whatever destiny has prepared.
***If you want to check out more of her vibrant photographs, take a look at her Instagram accounts and her agency’s website:@nicolineaagesen
@mycameramyrules
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