Frank Zabel

R-E-V-E-L-A-T-I-O-N
is the third photography of the series „Ether of Being“. This picture made me write personally to Pope Francis. What moved me to do that? I’d like to answer this question at this point. At the beginning of my path I would have never imagined to be involved again with the church or to write to the Vatican. I lost my faith completely about five years ago through the shock of the death of one of my beloved sons. My son died of leukemia. With this stroke of fate I realised that I wanted to change my future path. A path with the possibility to build a foundation someday, supported through my art to let affected children forget for a moment, that they have to deal with this illness and the fear, that they might lose their life through this illness. To let them be children again and feel good and alife for a moment. This is why I started out. Packed with my camera I left for an uncertain future, I left everything what defined my life until then, with only one goal: to help, to give. And also to show all the people out there how wonderful and precious it is, to consciously seize every moment on this planet, to live. I also started searching for answers, to understand, to accept why all this has happened. Since over four years now I’ve been on this way, alone with my camera, walking thousands of miles. The photographs I take are intuitively, they are a reflection of my emotions and also very often a deep sadness – related to the loss of four beloved people over the time of about one and a half years. From the very beginning, it was most important for me to show real pictures, photographs without any editing, just pure! I knew how difficult this path would be and that the biggest challenge is, that people trust the realness of the pictures and myself. I also knew, I wouldn’t have many resources to walk this rocky road. This hasn’t really changed yet. But I never questioned the faith in myself and the belief in my own capabilities with which I started out on this journey. It’s been wonderful at times, but also very painful, not only because I tried to find a common, earthly way to generate the power and resources I needed to walk this path at all. But I realized very fast, I couldn’t still pursue this “earthly way” which I have been taught, it wouldn’t help me in finding healing, because this rational way of living had lost its relevance for me since the loss of four beloved people. What I learned was: if you lose a beloved human and maybe personally lose all interest in life due to this emotional pain, the only one thing to survive is to withdraw oneself from the “systemic relevance” and return to the center of one’s own existence as a human individual. It was and is most important to me to surround myself with people I’d really like to spend time with, people who act out of and live love, who shine. I wanted to live in this kind of love. With every day on this photographical journey I felt more and more my inner Self and this deep love within, which has awoken my primary instinct. I keep photographing with a widely open heart and in exactly these moments I feel that I am able to maybe “see” more. I kept enhancing myself and this instinct and intuition naturally while walking this path. A path, defined by darkness and fear, through pain and sadness to the relieving feeling of acceptance, which I then realized and which was well needed to see light again, to shine again, to accept love again as it is, without the fear of my light being dimmed or going out. I opened up more and more to myself and with every day and every step I felt more spirituality within myself. More connection and oneness with nature and everything undisturbed and influenced by humans. At some point I felt I shouldn’t be anymore, now I AM. I AM. During the last year on this very own spiritual and photographical journey I was able to open up so widely, that I found a way to uncover something veiled with my camera. As the picture „R-E-V-E-L-A-T-I-O-N“ was taken, there was no person there I could have photographed. This picture wrapped me up intensely and overwhelmed me at times, so that I took the time to enter into a dialogue with people about these “photographical discoveries”. In many dialogues, with religious representatives of the church and also scientists, I kept searching for answers for this phenomenon. But I was told vigorously to not publish the series “Ether of Being”, because these “APPEARANCES” would be too sensitive for the broad public. I believe that these pictures are proof for something which has been veiled until now. My photographies are all REAL and for these very special pictures which I discovered, I feel immense gratitude from the bottom of my heart that this discovery has been bestowed upon me. My belief is, especially because of the many dialogues about these pictures, that they can give something like hope to many people. I personally see the likeness of Jesus Christ on the picture Revelation and that is what got me very engaged for a long time. I have seen many painted iconographies in my lifetime – also due to my professional life as a master carpenter, which all have a close resemblance to the face on my photograph. To me, this picture has an intangibly peaceful impact, which needs to be felt and experienced. When looking at it, I feel an inconceivable calmness and a deep love within myself. Exactly because of these feelings it is important to me, to extravert this message, to share what I feel with as many people as possible. By the way, the music with the title “Prologue”, I played on the keyboard three days after I took the picture Revelation. I sat down and played although I can’t play the piano. That’s another sign for me, that this piece of music belongs to this photography… In a dialogue with a priest I was asked: “Why should the holy ghost show itself to you, Frank Zabel, in this way (photography)?” I answered: “I believe, that the Old Masters like Leonardo da Vinci or Michelangelo for example, could see similar appearances. But they didn’t have other possibilities than to paint what they saw. Wherefrom should they get their knowledge? I myself have the highest respect for the Old Masters, their pictures are the reflection of their era and their possibilities. What my photographies differentiate from the paintings of the Great Old Masters is that they are a real image of the moment. This is what photography was invented for in its origin. ” I trust in the things I see on and feel in my pictures and I trust in my experience that there is more than what meets our eyes. Now it is visible. I have the deep feeling, that these special photos which came into my life, will touch people’s hearts. I am on this path, bound and determined and with deep love, because I feel, that this is my very own mission. I’m on the way to support people through my art, especially children, who deserve every help. These pictures are my mission with the objective, to open up people’s hearts – in a time, which already is incredibly heard. I’d like to give hope. For me personally, the church has the only relevance in this matter, because for me, this picture shows a clear reflection of Jesus Christ’s message: LOVE. Frank Zabel 2021

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