After being turned down by a number of schools, Skarbakka realized what had happened, rectified the problems in his application process, and was accepted to a photography program at Columbia College in Chicago. Here he was turned on to the influences of the convoluted German philosopher Martin Heidegger, who described the experience of life as perpetually falling and our responsibility as human beings to master our own uncertainties. Having struggled with the void left by rejecting the security of strong religious beliefs and a history of being confronted with and subsequently correcting mistakes, Heidegger’s perspective was a good analogy for the body of work Skarbakka was about to create.

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