© 2020 Nomadict. All rights reserved.
Tom MacConnol
@tmac.photography
Best of the week 38 at #nomadict 2020
Travelling has always been a constant in my life. When I was seven, I moved with my family from the UK to Sydney, Australia, for my dad’s work. We stayed for three years and this experience gave me the opportunity to explore some amazing places and do some awesome things such as road tripping around New Zealand and snorkeling around the Fijian islands. However at that age I undoubtedly took these experiences for granted.
As I grew older, my urge to travel stemmed from constantly wanting to experience and see new things. It fascinates me that every destination across the globe has its own culture, history, landscape, people and stories and I’m at my happiest when I’m exploring all these first hand. It is easy to forget how diverse and big the world is when you’re in your daily routine at home, so I love travelling as it puts things into perspective, broadens your mind and as a result I believe it makes you a more well rounded individual.
"Perhaps the fact that I will never see and experience everything out there adds to the attraction for me, making it a never ending quest that will always have more to offer."
My favourite travel experience came when I was in India with my girlfriend in 2018. Our guide, Pradeep, insisted that we joined his family for dinner in his home on the outskirts of Jaipur, the capital of the northern state of Rajasthan. We later discovered that his family consisted of over 10 people (cousins, nephews, grandparents etc.) who all lived in 2 rooms in the house. It was humbling that people with so few possessions were so happy and treating us like royalty. We helped prepare the vegetables by chopping them on the floor, and we were taught how to make roti the traditional way. We ate our dinner with our hands whilst sitting on their bed, and his entire family watched us eat before they would start their own. It turned out to be the nicest curry we have ever eaten!
"My passion for photography has grown naturally the more I have travelled."
As every destination is unique, I try to capture the culture, history, landscape, people and stories through my images to help convey the spirit of the destination to others. I love the idea of freezing a memory in time that you can look back on for years to come or use to inspire others. I received my first camera in 2017 as a present after graduating university and since then it hasn’t left my side when I am exploring new places. In fact, I would say that travel and photography have become so connected for me that if you said I could travel anywhere in the world but I couldn’t take my camera, then I probably wouldn’t go! I visit a lot of places now purely because i want to photograph the location, and so i would say that photography has made me more adventurous and prompted me to explore places that I otherwise would probably have never visited.
What fascinates me about photography is that every image is unique. You could have 1000 people taking a photo of the same thing, yet every photo will be different from the next, whether it be due to gear/equipment, camera settings, composition, lighting, weather/season, editing style etc – so many elements play a role in producing the final image that other people get to see.
Linked to this, and probably what I love most about photography, is that every image has a story behind it. I will often plan and visualise the photo I want to capture of a specific place before I actually visit it. On a recent trip to the Isle of Skye, I wanted to get the classic shot of the Old Man of Storr rock formation. Those who have visited know it’s a tough, steep and slippery climb up from the road to the Storr, and as I got higher up the mountain the weather changed and the clouds came in so I couldn’t even see the Storr 50m in front of me. Since I made the effort to get up there, I thought I would wait for the weather to clear, so I sat there for over two hours getting battered by rain. Unfortunately the weather didn’t clear and I had to make my way back down the mountain having not even taken my camera out of the bag.
"I woke up early the next morning and repeated it all again - weather had cleared up and I was able to get the shot."
What makes the shot special to me isn’t necessarily how I photographed it or edited it, but instead the story and memories behind it. When I see the photo, I’m reminded of being out of breath on the two tough hikes, being soaked to the core on the first day and waking up early for sunrise on the second day. It began with a goal and plan to make it happen, and it required patience, perseverance and effort to turn the visualisation into reality on my camera. Photos are often very personal to the photographer in that sense. It’s always more fun and rewarding when you have to work for a photo!
That is also the reason why the winning photo is special to me – the story behind it. I took this shot during sunrise at Alpe Di Siusi, which is Europe’s largest mountain plateau situated in the Italian Dolomites. Alpe Di Siusi is notoriously hard to access for sunrise as the road leading up to the plateau is closed off and access is limited only to residents. In order to get there, you must drive up the windy roads to a small car park and make a 6km hike in the dark to the vantage point. My alarm woke me at 3:50am and I began the one hour drive up the windy mountain roads, driving through the sleeping towns and passing only one other car on the journey. I drove as far as I could before I reached the restricted road, and then put on my head torch and set off for the final 6km walk. It was silent and peaceful, the only noise being the sound of cowbells in the distance. When I finally reached the vantage point it was still pitch black, so much so that I couldn’t plan my composition as I couldn’t see any of the landscape in the distance. I had read online that getting the right conditions up there was a real lottery – sometimes the mountains in the distance were completely covered in clouds and sometimes there was no morning mist to add to the atmosphere.
"As it got brighter I knew I was in luck that day and the journey had been worthwhile."
I could see the towering mountains in the distance, the clouds were wispy and created an amazing pattern in the sky and, to top it all off, the rolling hills were covered in a thick mist that surrounded the rustic wooden huts and trees in the distance. After walking through the long wet grass for another 10 minutes, I finally found the composition I was happy with and made sure my camera settings were good to go. And then it happened. The sun peeked over the horizon and lit up the clouds, turning the sky pink for no more than 2 minutes. It all happened so quickly and it was the best sunrise I had ever seen.
WINNING PHOTOGRAPH
BEST OF THE WEEK 38
When editing this shot, I wanted to convey the amazing colours in the sky that I witnessed that morning. Since I exposed the original shot for the sky, the edit mainly consisted of bringing up the shadows in the foreground to make the wooden huts the main focal point of the image. To me, editing images is not something that should be frowned upon and is definitely something anyone getting into photography needs to learn alongside taking photos. Editing is what gives your images your own unique style which makes them distinguishable against others and allows them to stand out from the crowd.
I learnt that it is good to be spontaneous, go out of your comfort zone and take every opportunity given to you, because you never know where it could lead. It was a very last minute solo trip that I booked in lieu of not being able to visit Central Asia.
I left my full-time job back in March to do a couple of months travelling, however with COVID-19 this hasn’t been possible. I was planning to visit Central Asia, specifically Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, and Jordan where I was going to be taking photos for local travel agencies for their websites and social media accounts. Instead, I’ve used the time to develop my photography and editing skills through online tutorials and have been putting these into practice. One day I would love to turn my passion for photography into a career and use it to travel to more places, however for now it just remains a hobby for me. Though I very much consider myself a relative beginner at this photography game, for those starting out from scratch, my biggest advice would be to just grab any camera you can find and get out there, practice and get to know your camera and its settings. I’ve taken some of my favourite photos on a $300 camera so it just shows that you don’t need top of the range gear to get results.
"It is challenging sometimes to set your mind to see opportunities instead of obstacles."
Yet, by doing so and focusing on opportunity I believe we can make ourselves so much happier and live with more positive energy. I left my job and was about to finally head to Central Asia, but nothing went as planned. Dealing with this disappointment wasn’t easy, but with the right mindset I have now been able to develop and improve my photography, and as a bonus I could do this amazing solo trip to the Dolomites.
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