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Albert
@by.albertmj
Best of the week 22 at #nomadict 2021
Luckily, I’m born into a family who loves to travel. I got the chance to visit remarkable places when I was younger but unfortunately that was way before I grew my passion for photography.
I’ve been familiar with cameras since I was a child – my father owned one so I captured a thing here and there – but my love for photography was washed away by time. It was hard to find people who shared the same interests, until I went to college. It was late 2018 that my passion for photography appeared on the surface again, when I joined a creative community that pushed me to explore new things. And here I am!
Surprising as it is, but the pandemic has given me a significant impact on my current path. I grew my love for travel photography during my college years, watching all those wild adventures and beautiful shots from all around the world by Emmet Sparling, Josiah, or Sam Kolder, for example. I waited until my college years were over, which were all about essays, tests and the responsibilities that come with that, before I began traveling on my own. In mid 2019, I managed to go on a short trip (fortunately!) but shortly after that everyone was forced to stay at home because of the pandemic.
I remember, a few months after being locked down, one afternoon, I was just chilling in my living room when I saw that Jord Hammond announced in his story that he was holding an editing contest and I decided to enter right away. In the beginning, I didn’t even aim to win, I just needed something to post so I could keep my account alive. Surprisingly I began to enjoy it and I participated in almost every FFA editing contest I knew.
"With one of them, I got second place and as part of the prize I won the hard copy of the first edition of the Nomadict Magazine."
Some people admire my way of editing and some others would think that I was just posting other people’s work, even when I wasn’t. No matter which side people are on, right now I believe that those hours I spent working on others’ photos, eventually shaped me into the artist I am now. It was my learning process. It made my eyes more familiar with how good photographers composed their shots and this is really helpful when I am in the field. I also used it as a practice to ameliorate my editing skills and as I’ve begun shooting only relatively recently, my past contest entries pushed me to work harder so I could maintain the high standard/quality of posts now I am uploading my own shots.
Although participating in editing contests helped me spend the lock down effectively, staying home for a year made me realize that I wasn’t ready to settle into this life I was living. Not just the virus but also the routine could kill me. Early 2021, I had this feeling of not being able to cope with it anymore. It was the anxiety, the fear of settling into routines while I have never tried to let myself pursue my dream. And so I decided to soothe myself with a 7-days road trip.
"If not because of the pandemic, I’m sure I won’t be here right now being interviewed by Nomadict, and having the chance to get my shot featured in a magazine."
I will never forget that day I took the winning shot. It’s going to be the story I keep telling everyone when I’m older, of how foolish I was when I was younger on my first trip after a worldwide pandemic. This shot was taken in East Java, my first stop of the 7-days road trip. There are a lot of beautiful waterfalls to be visited here! Being someone who has never really travelled to waterfalls before, I seriously had no idea how exhausting hiking to a fall was going to be. The hikes to East Java’s waterfalls aren’t the short and easy ones but rather the at least an hour-long kind of hike, up and down a hill, and another to get back up. Without any knowledge of how sore my legs would be after one day visiting a waterfall, I decided to check another well-known waterfall for the day after and guess what? I woke up hardly being able to even stand up from bed, but guess who still went to another fall that day? Me. With my legs shaking and sore, I hiked down to another waterfall that day and that’s when this shot was taken.
I reached the site around 6am and it took me 5 to 10 minutes to walk to the Panoramic View. They built this gazebo, for you to look at the fall from the above. From a distance, I could already hear the loud noise from the falls. I arrived a bit too early and could barely see anything except the thick mist that was hovering around and covering the fall.
Not much later, it slowly faded away revealing the waterfall – A curtain of silky smooth water dropping over the forest edge. Every second was such a remarkable moment! When the mist was almost gone, I followed the track to reach the bottom of the fall which took me roughly an hour. The track was adventurous up to the point that I had to climb down a little waterfall and cross rivers – with my sore legs.
"When I finally reached the bottom of the fall, I was speechless."
It took my breath away; it was so huge and beautiful that I just stood there for a few minutes, trying to take it all in before capturing the beauty on camera. I have been lucky because the mist and humidity affected the functionality of my camera. It was alright the first five minutes after I took it out of my bag but not a second after – I was afraid and panicked, but I got the shot and my camera remained working later on.
"The story I was trying to deliver from this shot was a journey into the depth of the jungle."
The rocks were massive, and the falls were so huge that it reminded me of something from the Jurassic world scene. Because down there, nature was still untouched, the jungle having a life on its own. What I took into account when shooting this, besides the right setting, was how to fit everything in one frame.
I love to have a person in my shot. Take a second to look at my waterfall shot and just imagine it without the couple standing there; it’d be hard to help the audience understand the scale of the place. However, you don’t always find a model or have someone with you. Thus, being creative is the solution. Sometimes I’d ask a stranger in return for free photos, but if none was there, I’d photoshop a person into the shot when I feel like it would add a lot. There are several ways to do that.
I used to get the materials from my older shots, or sometimes I look on a free stock site. Some websites, like Pexels, let you use it with no attribution required, and you’ll be allowed to modify and be as creative as you like. You can then use the result however you like and share it anywhere you want, but keep in mind that not every free-stock website has the same rules so you have to be careful and make sure to be aware of the conditions before you use it. Some may not favor editing elements into their shot, but personally as long as you do it the right way, I believe there’s nothing wrong with that. I choose not to let anything limit me, the idea is if I can make it better, why not?
"I know I've been there. I experienced it myself. And all I want to do is impact the viewers of my photos, motivate them to stand up and go after what they want, just as how I was impacted by standing there myself, tiny and in awe."
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