Wonderland
08 January, 2023
08 January, 2023
Looking at the latest ‘travelogues’, I feel that there is a growing gap between what I want to photograph and what I’m actually photographing. Should I mind? That those little series are more of a reflection of how I spent my vacations and less of the photographer I would like to be? I’m tempted to see these as ‘missed opportunities’, but are they? And then, I’m not having a clue anyway these days of the photographer I’d like to be.
I love snow, but it’s not my ambition to photograph winter wonderland, that I do know. But that’s exactly what I did. Taking pictures of pretty landscapes stretching out in front of me. When hiking, if temperatures allowed me to operate a camera with my bare hands, or from behind the windshield of the car. I got the flu shortly before boarding to Kristiansand, so my energy level was low, and I was happy to be outdoors at all, after wasting precious time on the couch feeling miserable. Taking pictures felt like a bonus.
I love snow, but it’s not my ambition to photograph winter wonderland, that I do know. But that’s exactly what I did. Taking pictures of pretty landscapes stretching out in front of me. When hiking, if temperatures allowed me to operate a camera with my bare hands, or from behind the windshield of the car. I got the flu shortly before boarding to Kristiansand, so my energy level was low, and I was happy to be outdoors at all, after wasting precious time on the couch feeling miserable. Taking pictures felt like a bonus.
And so I ended up with lots of photos of snow-covered landscapes with trees and paths. Along with the question of how to make this a little more interesting. Bare trees and snow make files that are practically monochrome. And although I’ve been doing a
lot of black and white lately, I figured this was the time to play some with colour and texture. A painting was hanging on one of the walls of the house in Flatdal. A landscape painted with rough brushstrokes in earthy tones. Not a winter landscape, but the unpolished style and mood somehow made me see what a small series drawn from these pictures could look like.
I added touches of colour to the highlights to underline the different shades of light during the day, or to align them with how I rememberd them. In addition, I selected pictures that contain some colour to begin with. Like the one of the waterfall, because of the unusual yellow hue of the water and the purple-blue sky. The pictures that I took from the car after most of daylight was gone, also felt right for what I had in mind: turning up ISO for a faster shutter speed (no smooth rides on those roads), gave them a sort of roughness to go with their particular colour scheme. Others are slanted (again, bumpy roads) in a way I probably wouldn't have allowed for under different circumstances. And I included pictures in which it is actually snowing, sometimes hardly visible, but giving the scene a somewhat painterly texture. The result comes more from selecting than from editing (as in post processing), which is as good an excercise as any other.
I added touches of colour to the highlights to underline the different shades of light during the day, or to align them with how I rememberd them. In addition, I selected pictures that contain some colour to begin with. Like the one of the waterfall, because of the unusual yellow hue of the water and the purple-blue sky. The pictures that I took from the car after most of daylight was gone, also felt right for what I had in mind: turning up ISO for a faster shutter speed (no smooth rides on those roads), gave them a sort of roughness to go with their particular colour scheme. Others are slanted (again, bumpy roads) in a way I probably wouldn't have allowed for under different circumstances. And I included pictures in which it is actually snowing, sometimes hardly visible, but giving the scene a somewhat painterly texture. The result comes more from selecting than from editing (as in post processing), which is as good an excercise as any other.
