LAPC

The Call of the Mountains

| Florin

This week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge, hosted by Amy, is all about mountains.

In the mountains, I’ve felt at peace, exhilarated, grateful, exhausted, scared, lost. I walked endless trails that took me way out of my comfort zone. I found myself up on the mountain, in the wild, as it was getting dark, wondering how will I make it back down. I found myself in danger (just because I’ve put myself in danger) and felt my life hanging on a thread. I found myself so incredibly at peace with everything out there, me included. I felt that I belong.

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Triptych

| Florin

Since Sarah (from Travel with me) invited us to share three of our favorite photos, I thought about what I would choose and, more broadly, about how we relate critically to our own work.

The photos that tend to stay with me are those that tell a story that’s meaningful to me. Those that reconnect me to that past moment when I took the photo, but also to the story, emotion, mood, or idea that stayed with me over time. Although I tend to overthink and over-intellectualize in other parts of my life, when it comes to photography I go with the gut. I know (or feel) that some compositions make sense long before I start analyzing them.

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Summer turns to high

| Florin

The sun emerges slowly from the sea, hesitating as if the heaviness of the water is holding it back. The small beach is full of crabs that were washed ashore by the tide and eaten by the seagulls. One crab carcass has been flipped over and now it catches the morning sunlight.

There’s nobody around.

The soft waves carry the memory of water in an endless back and forth.

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Introverted doors

| Florin

This week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge, hosted by Sylvia, is all about doors and doorways.

Doors. We open and close them dozens of times each day. We use them to organize our space. To get access. To open to the world. To protect from the world.

But there are also doors that won’t open. They are not in use anymore or they’ve never been in use. They seem to be there to hide rather than reveal something.

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Minimalism

| Florin

Almost anything can be improved by removing stuff. Simplifying it. Getting rid of the clutter. Then getting rid of even more clutter, which at first glance may have seemed important.

It works with books, photographs, relationships, or lives.

We are compulsive hoarders of sensations, emotions, objects. We commit to impossible schedules and we have impossible ambitions. We want to be everywhere and part of everything. Not miss out. Not be left out. We live on the run and then, from time to time, we inevitably break down.

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The spring in color

| Florin

It’s the high time of spring. There’s a continuous explosion of color. I have watched the small wood anemones come and go, just days ago. Now they’re already replaced by the bluebells. Some patches of forest are still making the transition from white to blue and, for a while, they coexist.

I like to go out early and see how the colors are transformed, enhanced, nuanced by the morning light. I usually have the camera with me and most times I will come back with some photos. But there’s only so much I can capture on camera.

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