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Lukas Taday
@lukas.photography
Landscape photographer based in Germany
My passion for individual travel started with crossing the Alps and traveling to Iceland with my father when I was 15. After that I was totally addicted to being outdoors: hiking, backpacking, gazing at breathtaking landscapes…
"And with that, the interest in photography slowly joined my passion for nature."
"In winter 2018, the moment had come; my first solo trip of three months, direction South America."
I wanted to go to Chile because it is such a narrow but incredibly long country from north to south and there are so many different landscapes and vegetation that I dreamed of seeing myself. Being there, I let myself lead by experiences and people I met, ending up visiting Bolivia and Argentina as well. This trip showed me that there’s more than my life back home, more than what I had seen so far in Europe. More than what I was more or less familiar with. For the first time I saw a very different way of life.
"It was a unique experience, left me impressed and also, I got to know myself much better."
"Since I was on the road for a long time having my camera, complete freedom and an incredible scenery all around me, I started to do a lot of photography."
I didn’t let go of that after arriving home. I also try to capture many moments in my everyday life and in the weekend I like to search for unique moments over here. I often look for a destination to shoot sunrise or sunset or to photograph a starry sky. Taking photos at night is something special for me because you rarely have the opportunity to see the Milky Way at new moon. Unfortunately I didn’t have the chance of being at the right place at the right time for a while now. I would love to do a few more night trips, but everything has its time. Walking along through the forest at night is just such a good feeling. The senses are so much sharper than during the day, you have unexpected encounters with animals and the adrenaline rises with every sound.
"That is what I love about photography; you have a completely different view on many things and do things you otherwise wouldn’t."
You get up very early in the morning to see and shoot the sunrise in a specific place. You hike for days to get to a place you would like to take a picture of. Even in rain and what other people call bad weather, I love to capture the mood.
"Not exactly the greatest photographic experience for me, but in any case something that reflected me and my experiences in my pictures was the several days of hiking alone in Patagonia."
Simply being completely exposed to nature, just having something to eat, a tent and a bit of clothing. In wind and weather on the road and the only goal of the day is to find a place for the tent where the wind is not blowing it away. Capturing these experiences in photos is just great. However, back then it was more about photographing the location as I had no idea about composition yet. I think we all have many photos that we would take or edit differently when we look at certains photos a year later or even just a few months later, as we continuously progress. Important to remember is that at that time, we thought we were doing the right thing, we did our best according to the skills and knowledge we possessed back then and it still represents a unique moment in our life, which, at the end, is the most precious.
"The act of traveling alone, even just for a few days but definitely more than one day, is so satisfying and fulfilling."
Often, the first day or night is still a period of familiarization, you still don’t feel completely comfortable in the situation. But the longer you are out there, the better you will feel. If you are letting yourself, of course. Personally, when I have spent several days outdoors, I feel refreshed and full of energy and very close to nature. I would always learn little things, for instance regarding eating and sleeping in nature, and I start appreciating the adventure in nature much more if I immerse myself longer.
"It’s like slowly becoming aware again of my position on Earth, how small I am, how nature rules everything, and how certain thoughts suddenly don’t matter..."
"During my trip to Asia, which started in winter 2019, I traveled to Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, all of which were special to me in their own way."
The culture, previously unknown to me, overwhelmed me. I had never seen something alike. The hustle and bustle on the streets with the unbelievable traffic and the many small stalls. The way people were doing their – for me unimaginable – jobs, such as the two women who apparently did nothing all day other than sticking tiny paillettes on Buddha statues. The life of the fishermen on the water, living on small rafts with self-made huts in the middle of the water between fish farms… Since I landed in Bangkok first and stayed there for several days, I was able to quickly get to know many sides of the culture, but I kept being surprised.
"Since I already knew how it was to travel alone, it didn't take long to get back into the flow."
What fascinates me so much about traveling alone, is that you can develop yourself completely freely and that you can get to know the country in your own way without compromising. The friendly and open culture of Asia quickly intrigued me and I was able to make great acquaintances, whether it was Zizi who lives in a mountain village in the north of Vietnam or the woman who invited me to eat on the street in Bangkok.
"Making contact with locals is one of the best parts of traveling."
I always try to somehow get involved in their way of life and learn that way the real and profound culture, besides all the common things you read online or the cultural aspects that are visible for everyone. In addition, they often want to know just as much about ours. What makes traveling alone interesting, and sometimes challenging, is that you often have to rely on locals. It makes it easy to get in touch with them, because sometimes you are forced to ask them if you want to get somewhere or even to have some fun. At the beginning, I often had language problems, especially because I was basically improving my English by traveling. However, you sometimes do not need to speak the same language to communicate with each other.
"Traveling and photography always bring me a little bit closer to myself, whether it is an excursion an hour away from home or several thousands of kilometers."
Through photography, I can simply let myself absorb in my surroundings and the moment. In the future, I would like to try to bring the viewer closer to the emotions and experiences behind my pictures with my photography. When I work on a picture, it is my goal to bring my emotions and experience as close as possible to the viewer. I want to share the moment through a photograph and reinforce it through the post processing. I love the play of color contrasts and the possibility to design my picture the same way like I had in mind when shooting it. For me, image editing is a big part of my photography simply because you can totally immerse yourself in the moment that you had when taking the pictures.
"Memories come up and the moment can be re-lived."
Whether it’s the sunrise in Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia, where I felt so peaceful and only saw the sun on the horizon, no mountains or anything else but the rising sun, or the sunrise in Torres del Paine after a rough night with a storm that tore my tent apart and I couldn’t sleep… These are all wonderful memories that come up when looking again at my photos. But they are more than just memories; they help me remind myself of the lessons I learnt. Of certain values and the little importance of ‘bad’ things that may happen to you, which seem to be a problem but at the end are easy to solve or don’t matter that much when putting it into perspective.
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