I enjoy many different photographic subjects and don’t want to box myself into any single category, but it’s true that some themes motivate me more than others. Looking through my photos, it’s clear that abandoned buildings are one of my favorite recurring subjects. I’m also very drawn to nature photography, whether it’s inland or coastal. Railway themes pop up from time to time, as do lighthouses and bridges. But there’s one genre I really love, even though I have to admit it tends to resist me: mountain photography.
Despite the wear and tear it causes my car, I’ve driven countless kilometers on mountain roads, and without a doubt, they’re the most rewarding for someone passionate about photography. Every kilometer is a visual delight, and every bend in the road might surprise you with a breathtaking view. Sometimes you find yourself high above a valley, with a bird’s-eye view that sends a shiver of vertigo through your body. Other times, an enormous peak rises up before you, and you have to twist your neck like a character from The Exorcist just to glimpse the summit. The possibilities are endless.
But all those stunning scenes often defy my attempts to capture them in a photograph, they pale in comparison to the real thing. The perspective gets lost, the scale is flattened, and the sense of vastness simply disappears. It’s a difficult and often thankless kind of photography. That’s why the mountain photo I’m sharing today, even though it doesn’t depict one of the most spectacular places I’ve visited, manages to retain much of the location’s beauty and conveys some of the feelings I experienced in that moment. I admit, it’s not a great mountain, but it offered me its beauty and allowed itself to be photographed.
