Higher Than Heaven


  • Photographer
    Alex Priscu
  • Prize
    Honorable Mention
  • Date of Photograph
    5 September 2015
  • Technical Info
    Camera: Canon 600D

'Higher Than Heaven' expresses the emotional journey of the youth as we grow and expose ourselves to the open Urban World. The Urban World and City Life invites us to be free and adventurous in its open spaces but also illuminates us with the anxiety of the unknown. The photos were taken in the highest building of Cape Town: Portside Tower Standing 149m high.

Story

Higher Than Heaven

I see the world and it’s streets as a blank canvas.
Buildings cold and bare that can’t contain us.
For we are the artists and painters behind it.
A collection of people like-minded.
The infrastructure was never designed for us yet there is something so raw about being alive in it.
That you wouldn’t stop for a second and ask: “why am I in it?”

Just as quietly as the moment came, it leaves you. And you are left to realize this so you hold this moment so close because like most of the other days, life has the better hand of cards and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Our city is beautiful and mesmerizing, the alignment of concrete against the horizon.
Tinted glass looking down at you makes you believe we live in a place without a single stain.
But that isn’t the case.
Look a little harder next time.
Because of any given Sunday when I walk the city, I see no humans, faces or pity. I see doors locked, people gone, cold weather and shadows where they belong.


I take my camera and my trusted friends with, never knowing what’s going to happen next.
We pack our bags and say our prayers, no one knows we are even there.
Our boards slowly grind upon the textured road until we go downhill into a place unknown.
The doors are closed and we can’t wait.
The first act of freedom is by jumping the gate.
The stairs seem rhetorical so the scaffolding will do. Don’t worry about falling, there’s no one to catch you.
As we climb and climb, time ticks by, we talk and smile just like the kids our parents knew for a while.
See no one fully understands us, our broken homes left us abandoned.
No love or compassion, only fistfuls of anger.

This is why we dream. This is our relief. A self made drug of peace.
No more confusion or war within. Only sounds of silence like the wind. Overdosing on the internal Wild Bliss.
This is our therapy and novelty. To some it is a mysterious dream of lost teenagers, and others an act of uncalled for risk. We don’t play games with feelings, we only better our selves by experiencing.
I love the rush and surge of blood pumping and excitement to the point where I’m running up the building into something of the unknown. Until I am
nearly at the zenith, passing through all the hallways and blocks. I just make it through the door and everything stops.

That moment in time where you feel the presence of the air breezing gently against your skin and your heart beating heavily within. Nothing matters but the ground you bear your weight on. You become a ball of life and creativity, an original masterwork of self-belief and defining the law of gravity.

Leaving your troubles behind, this city makes you feel alive. The walls once dark and blue release their tension and create a new mood. One that is crisp and contains contrasting clarity. The city that was once your enemy now becomes the catharsis of self-discovery.

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