Winds From Untold Memories
(Among Mountains, 2021)
The Wandering Soul
Alleine unterwegs, auf Reisen, sind es zwei Bilder, die entstehen und bestehen bleiben. Das eine ist das, was ich fotografiere; das andere das, was ich sehe und in mir verweilen wird. Eines davon macht mich zu dem, der ich heute bin; das andere verkörpert, was die Leute von mir zu verstehen und wissen glauben.
[2021/09/25]
About ten years ago, the photography of Vincent Favre, Xavier Jamonet, and Alexandre Deschaumes brought me deeper into landscape photography and let me continue it with bigger effort.
In 2011, a friend of mine and I finally went to the mountains for the first time. In 2012 and 2013, I did the first trips of my life just on my own. They were exhausting due to all the hiking with a heavy backpack but nevertheless a great time which likely made me the one I am today. Even today, I remember vividly sitting all alone far above a valley, patiently waiting for the sunrise, listening to the sound of the wind and a dogs barkling which must have travelled hundreds of meters.
Years later, in 2017, I started another attempt. Unfortunately, it didn’t feel right at that time of my life. I visited a few places, but couldn’t stand my own memories. Memories which felt huge like the mountains around me. Back then, I felt loneliness, instead of solitude. Since then, I’ve been elsewhere during autumn, but the on-going regulations of their weird corona politics made me change my plans unexpectedly. I sorted out my research, put together a route (not so different to the one years ago) and started my trip. I didn’t want to put high pressure on my so I aimed for two or three weeks but finally stayed for about a month. I visited only a few places but some of them twice or more to achieve what I had in mind (which worked out sometimes, at least).
The visited places are well-known but fortunately, most of these images has been taken when I was alone on site. I care about these certain images the most. Due to too many photographers promoting nature for their benefit by geotagging, hosting workshops and the like, nowadays often a certain type of people might show up. I don’t mind an interesting chat when sharing a scenery just with another loner. But I certainly do mind if two or more people show up and destroy the silence. Silence, which meant everything to me. It is simply disrespectful, and let me want to vanish. Furthermore, the habit of them to wear bright and colourful jackets is just bad as well, walking carelessly into the frame of others.
Frankly, it is weird but telling to me, that many of the today’s photographers showing images of the pristine and therefore silent and lonely nature, when they were actually disturbing this scenery at times. I couldn’t help myself to feel contempt about this habit. To me, the only landscape photography is the one in solitude, or loneliness. This is what the mountains have become to me. This travel, I understood that silence is not the absence of any sound, but the missing of human noise. And I understood, that freedom only exists where no one else is. There is no freedom where people are.
Long story short: This series show some of the captured images, which I’ve processed in the recent days. The second collection of images is linked below.
2021/11/01
Winds From Untold Memories, Pt. I | Pt. II
(more images of this place in Le Cascades)
(more images of this place in Rolling Hills)
