Erick Churro
@churrogt
Best of the week 44 at #nomadict 2021
My dad has been the person that introduced me to photography. He has never dedicated himself professionally to photography, but his love for the craft influenced me and he was also the one that gave me my first camera, a Sony Cyber-Shot. I took tons of photos with this camera until, at the age of 24, I bought my Canon Rebel t6 because I had decided I wanted to dedicate 100% love and passion to photography.
However, it’s never been easy to pursue photography as it’s something very uncommon where I live. Doing photography was seen as a profession without added value, so it wasn’t very well received when I told people about it. Despite the negative comments, though, I never gave up. I loved what I was doing and my passion has only grown. Photography taught me to see and love each detail of nature, it has introduced me to many people that are now my friends, and now it’s giving me recognition.
"I’ve achieved to show the people in my region that photography is a highly valued profession."
I had begun by exploring my region and later the rest of my country, Costa Rica. I tried learning everything I could about the theory behind photography and improving every day. With my Canon t5, I only had the lens 18/55 and I had to shoot everything with this one. The resolution wasn’t the best, but the compositions were good and so I was satisfied with what I had while I was saving money to buy better gear. Three years later I finally bought a Sony a7iii.
I am very satisfied with this new camera, but I also learned about shooting with a phone thanks to a talented Costa Rican girl. She only used her phone and challenged me to step out of my comfort zone. Once I did so, I realized I had neglected for a long time the differences that exist within the focal distances. The iPhone uses the frequencies 26mm/11mm. Personally, I always used the same lens because when I used another focal distance I didn’t know how to achieve a good composition. After I was given this challenge and discovered the possibilities, I shot photo after photo – realizing what I had been missing out on sticking with my 18/55 lens.
Nevertheless, the winning shot was taken not with my new camera, nor with my phone – but with my Mavic Mini, which I bought to create photographs with a different perspective. I was incredibly lucky the humpback whales were only about 600m away from the coast and I could get close with the drone, considering this drone doesn’t have too much capacity. On this occasion though, it was enough to achieve something great! When I saw the notification on my phone that Nomadict had tagged me in their stories and that this photo won the Best of the Week, I couldn’t believe it!
The humpback whales swim along the coast of Guanacaste every year, in both directions (north-south). I don’t know much more about these animals other than that they migrate every year. For some reason, they stay a lot around the end of San Miguel beach, and that’s where I went to take the shot. When I saw them, I first made a video. They were coming up toward the water surface, the mother swimming behind her calf. I stopped the video and took a shot when I thought it was the perfect moment for a photo. I was super excited, seeing something like this truly left me in awe.
"With the photo I intend to show how caring the mother is toward her calf, keeping an eye on her calf while it swam closer to the surface."
I created the composition in a way that this gesture is accentuated. With the editing, I wanted to convey a mysterious mood. Each photographer has access to an infinite number of possibilities when editing a photo and my style is rather dark and desaturated. With my style, I somehow try to say that this is my photograph, which is a goal I continuously seek to pursue – that people would recognize my color palette and know the artist was me. When putting the before/after next to each other, you can see there’s a huge difference. The original photo is colorful and provokes joy, which I love as well. However, the edit and final result evoke curiosity, mystery. And despite their magnitude and beauty, these animals live in the sea, hidden from most people’s sight and awareness. That on its own is already mysterious and I wanted to enhance that through my editing.
With my photographs, I hope to show others the beauty of Costa Rica. I live on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica, in Bejuco, Nandayure. And more specifically, near the beach of San Miguel, where I spotted the humpback whales. The silence, the sunsets, the sea, the rivers, the turtles, the mountains, the birds, the summers… With a smile on my face and a feeling of happiness within, I am writing this. I am grateful to live where I was born, in this little piece of paradise full of life or what we used to say here:
¡Pura Vida!
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