This is how my journey with solitude began. I started testing this aspect of reality and discovering new territories on my personal map.
Solitude… The Art of Being Your Own Company
frittz-kola
My first encounter with solitude happened long ago. But the association, the taste, the sensations remain to this day. I remember this moment clearly – where it happened and how. How I wanted to embrace it then and how much I enjoyed it. And now I’ve decided to recreate this experience. Is that even possible? Or is it all different now because I myself am different? We shall see…
Variations on a Theme of One
We collect experiences like bottles on a shelf, each one a different flavor of the same essence. Frittz Cola in different variations – is this not our life? The same days lived in slightly different ways.
There is something archaeological about testing new tastes alone – unearthing sensations without immediate translation into words for another’s benefit. The flavor exists purely in my experience, undiluted by conversation.
The Ritual of One
Being alone with a cup of coffee is not the absence of company but the presence of self. In the steam rising from the cup, I find the shape of my thoughts, uninfluenced by the words of others.
The café table for one becomes a desk for the mind, a stage for observation, a platform for the theater of strangers passing by. The world performs while I sit in the audience of my solitude.
The Ambivalence of Absence
Loneliness and solitude occupy the same physical space but entirely different emotional territories. One is a hunger, the other a feast.
Sometimes I photograph not the objects but the spaces between them. The negative space in a composition is like solitude in life—it gives definition to everything else.
The Scooter at Forty-Five
A grown man on a scooter challenges the choreography of adulthood. At forty-five, spontaneity becomes not just an emotion but a rebellion against the expected rhythms of age.
The city looks different from the height of childhood mobility. Streets I’ve walked for decades reveal new textures, new possibilities when crossed on wheels that make no cultural sense for a man my age.
Spontaneity as Resistance
We become scientists of our own experience, testing hypotheses about joy in controlled environments of solitude. Each new flavor, each new street route is an experiment in living.
Glass Reflections
The bar mirror shows one person where society expects two. The ritual of raising a glass without clinked confirmation somehow amplifies both the freedom and the void.
In the solitary drink there is conversation with myself that would be impossible in company. Thoughts float to the surface like ice in the glass—sometimes melting before I can fully grasp their form.
The Gallery of One
In the end, these photos form a gallery seen first through the eyes of one viewer – myself – before being shown to the world. They are translations of solitude into a language others might understand.
The project itself becomes a bridge between isolation and connection—proof that experiences embraced in solitude can still be shared, still touch others, still resonate beyond the single moment they were lived.