In this episode of the John Henry Weston Show, Don Elvir Tabakovic tells us about his life as a religious, who was before a pretty celebrity photographer, a priest, an atheist and a photographer, and how he lost his faith at the age of 12.
00:02:21.920It's not that simple yeah so my mother is from a catholic family as is my grandmother but
00:02:30.080my father comes from a muslim family so in my family the the religion was kind of a taboo
00:02:38.840and I did get catholic education catholic upbringing upbringing from my mother and my grandmother but
00:02:47.480it was also kept secret because my father wasn't approving of that so I was baptized without
00:02:56.840him knowing and he is still today very angry about that and I received the first communion
00:03:03.360also not in my I was in in catholicism class but I didn't receive with all my classmates
00:03:10.840I received it secretly in another church so that was a part of my upbringing and but you
00:03:17.600went on to sort of lose the faith a little bit or get into the world right so in case sometimes I
00:03:25.820forget to say that this when I was not around nine I went to become a priest oh wow but I forgot about
00:03:34.340that and when I was 12 I completely left the faith I was in sixth grade I started listening to punk rock
00:03:41.180music uh writing a skateboard like I got in contact with some anarchistic ideas like anarcho-communist and I was in a circle of people who were of that ideology so I just embraced it and at the same time I was thinking about God and how I never had any extraordinary experience of the spiritual realm so I just
00:04:11.160figured okay that surely doesn't exist that's just something that people imagined when they were primitive and now we're modern we have the science and we can just explain everything we just don't need any like stories for little children how God created the earth right so I just thought of it as something primitive right and superfluous what we just don't need and it is that around so now you're growing up is this when did the interest in photography start
00:04:41.140so the interest so this becoming an atheist consciously was with 12 okay and at that time I was already very interested in computers yeah and afterwards I learned programming I also went to some contests and also building websites like programming websites front-end back-end everything and for good websites as you know you already you always need good pictures photographs
00:05:07.140so that's why I was begging my parents for months to get me a digital camera and that's how I started with photography just as a hobby just as something I needed for the websites okay and it developed in high school it developed into a full-time profession so after high school I went I grew up in Croatia in Osijek that's my hometown and after high school I went to Zagreb to study photography
00:05:37.120cinematography and also I started working in cinematography and also I started working professionally for many magazines newspapers agencies private clients companies like commercial photography all kinds of stuff yeah and you were still a young man and I think you you you got to a level of photography that most people don't get to tell us a little bit about that well photography was a big passion it still is I still am taking photos of the liturgy
00:06:07.120yeah but I really was driven by photography and I wanted to okay that there was this wish to to have a great career of success but but also I was in love with beauty just the aesthetics the colors composition light it just fascinated me and through photography I found a way to express this fascination
00:06:37.120I was doing things I was doing things I was doing things I loved and I was paid to do it yeah great so you went you even toured the world doing this kind of thing you you you you were asked to go to different countries yeah accidentally in a sense not only working for for newspapers I started working also for for a car magazine the biggest car magazine in Croatia auto club so they've sent me all around the world practically to take photos
00:07:07.100photos of new cars and also to drive them and yeah yeah also also not all of them but most of them yeah that's good so where do you get back to faith through all this because you're you're now in the world sort of very successful and the way I mean you've probably fulfilled a lot of people's ultimate dreams to become a kind of celebrity photographer yeah yeah I mean I'm I was on Facebook like 12 years ago already when it was only for for the youth who knew what it all what it was all about
00:07:37.080and I started like getting a lot of fans on my Facebook page because I was posting I had the old the first iPhone and from the first iPhone on I always was posting photos like live photos from where I was traveling so people would see okay today he's in Spain tomorrow he's back to Zagreb the other day he's in Germany then he's back to America so I was like having a live diary
00:08:02.080online and a lot of people were like envious not in the negative sense but some some famous people told me wow can I just go travel with you and carry your bags your life is like so exciting exciting and it was yeah it was a fulfillment of my dream yeah I really dreamed about being a photographer being paid to do what I love and and it came about yeah
00:08:29.080yeah but after some time I started realizing there must be something more
00:08:36.580wow that that's the problem I you know I wasn't I didn't go that far that I had like millions or I had a private helicopter or something but I had really really everything I wanted in my spare time I was skateboarding snowboarding kitesurfing doing all kinds of stuff I had lots of friends I mean I still consider them friends and I loved
00:08:59.060them and I and I am contact with them although many of them most of them are not in the faith but I'm praying for them yeah so anyways my my time schedule was full but my heart was empty and that's just started kicking in but of course through the intercession through through the prayer of so many many especially my mother who was praying for me very intensively the last six years before my conversion because a friend
00:09:29.040of hers told her she should do it and take the example of Saint Monica that was praying for her son Saint Augustine and my mother prayed really a lot for my conversion together with his friend and I am eternally grateful to them and to the entire church for their prayers because I wouldn't have converted if people didn't pray for me
00:09:52.620wow what did that conversion look like how does someone go from celebrity photographer to even thinking about entering religious life
00:10:02.480even today when I think about it it looks impossible yeah because as said I was totally into this leftist mentality like anarcho communist I was playing in a punk rock band for nine years
00:10:19.920like against like against authority against the church everything I hated the church
00:10:24.120I I mocked the idea of the existence of God like people who would say they believe in God I would just mock them practically and
00:10:34.160put myself over them and consider them primitive
00:10:37.660yeah so it's completely impossible that a human could have convinced me to to embrace the idea of the existence of God and then converting to to the one true faith
00:10:54.580that's what I wanted to say with this whole
00:10:57.060absolutely but how does this unravel did you see something hear something what what what happened here
00:11:04.340uh the the way to to the faith was a twofold first when I was 25 I had an experience of prayer where this friend the same friend who told my mother to pray for me like six years before
00:11:20.120I told my mother uh at one point I would like to meet him because I see he helps you a lot through prayer and I'd like to meet him just to thank him
00:11:30.500but actually uh I was very curious I wanted to to see if uh if this spiritual world really exists
00:11:39.440because when I was 12 I decided no it doesn't exist but I heard stories also from some friends who who went to some uh retreats
00:11:49.220yeah and uh there were some uh demonic manifestations
00:11:53.620oh uh when during the prayer or deliverance
00:11:56.800yeah so I was like wow that really exists okay but I can't believe until I see it myself