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Tim Philippus
@timphilippus
Best of the week 4 at #nomadict 2021
I did a gap year in Australia after finishing high school and worked and traveled through the country for 8 months. Shortly before the trip, I bought my first entry-level camera, an old Canon EOS 700D with a cheap lens. I was deeply into long exposures and night photography during that time and I exactly remember that moment standing in the Pinnacle Desert in Western Australia at 1 am thinking, this is it! This is what I want to do
"From now on, I am going to spend every Dollar I make only on traveling and new camera equipment."
And that is basically what I did during my following studies, where I had 2 months off each year and was able to travel to a lot of different countries during the semester break. The decision on becoming a full-time freelancer was made in December 2019. Back then, I was torn between starting at a travel startup in Berlin or doing freelancing. I had a job interview at the company and it went really well, but they would not give me as much freedom in my own workflow as I would have expected.
"That was when I realized what big role freedom and the ability to determine my own schedule was playing for me. That was when I started freelancing."
The winning shot was taken at King Kong Hill – the pretty famous viewpoint with an outlook on Mount Bromo in Java, Indonesia. I remember that moment to be funny, as it turned out that I forgot my last pair of shoes in the hostel a day before and there was a 5-hour bus ride between me and them. I was ready to hike up the sandy hill in flip-flops when a guy who I met on the bus offered me to borrow his shoes, which came in pretty handy cause we had to start the hike in pitch-black darkness.
"It was pretty chilly and a little crowded once we arrived at the top, but the sunrise was absolutely beautiful."
While trying to take my photos and find a composition, I learned that securing a spot at a popular location definitely is key when relying on a tripod and getting the angle you would like to shoot. As there were a lot of people on that hill I could barely move, but after some scrambling up the hill, I found a spot that came close to what I was looking for.
I tried to capture the magnitude of the scene, which looked straight out of Jurassic Park. I also decided to include a little bit of the yellow grass in the foreground to make it clear that this was not shot with a drone and to give a better feeling of depth. When editing the photo, I tried to go for a soft and glowy look to add a dreamy feeling. I also enhanced the smoke coming out of the volcano, because that was one of the main parts of the shot that made it feel alive and tell a story.
For me, photography is about catching a feeling. It’s about storytelling. It’s about creating an emotional state inside the observer’s mind stronger than words could ever achieve. And that’s what continues to drive me in my photography.
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