Several years ago, shortly after my family and I came back from Australia, my older brother invited me to join him and his friends on an ATV weekend trip in the desert.

As an environmentalist I always despised this hobby or sport, you name it. As a young father, I often found myself hugging my scared small kids in the midst of a forest hike after an ATV would speed past our trail. The vehicle is noisy, aggressive, and mostly driven by people who need to take out their aggression in nature, rather than connect to themselves in nature. This was my opinion before the trip and remained solid after this weekend.

At the time of the invitation, my brother and I were not very close. Our relationship has been on and off for many years, although we always enjoy a high degree of authenticity and respect. When the phone rang I was quite lonely, so I decided to bend my principles for one weekend and use this trip as a bridge to get closer to him. I thought why not, let’s try something new.

As a kid, I always enjoyed being with his nearly four years older “cool” friends, and without even noticing- the kid in me did it again.

The trip was nice. The vehicle enabled us to reach remote and of the beaten track locations that most photographers dream about. However, during most of the trip, I felt like a Nature Journalist who was invited to cover a Grand Prix story.

The men’s overdose of testosterone, sided with competitiveness and ego-driven games overwhelmed me. I was sad, lonely, detached and closed off.

Israel is a military-based society; thus most men belong to this mescaline genre. I used to be “one of them”, but this weekend made me understand that I’ve changed dramatically.

Shortly after I was dismissed from my three year military combat service, I began a long self journey, without even knowing where I was heading.

I think that’s what guided me forwards: the desire to stop acting. To take off this mescaline mask and replace it with a see-through one. Just to be myself. And my true self is very gentle, a contradiction to my Mediterranean look. Slowly but surely I began pacing in unfamiliar but friendly trails- those of the world of creativity.

Photography is only one of the channels through which I express myself. I love writing in Hebrew, and I lecture both in Hebrew and English. The more I seasoned my life with the inspiring spices of creativity, the more I realized that my extrovert character has left the house, and will probably won’t be back.

A story develops when the author allows fresh and authentic characters to merge and disappear in correlation to the evolving story. In order to create, so I learned, I have to tap into the gentle and feminine parts of my personality. This trip made me realize how much I’ve changed. This image reflects the complexity of this story and of this exact feeling I carried over this weekend.

Fast forward three years later, my brother and I are good friends. Mainly because I learned to better define myself to…myself. I was bridging this mescaline-feminine gap in me and today I live more peacefully with my choices and lifestyle which are different than his. I learned that in order to feel belonging, I had to first feel belonging to myself.