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Chris Borg
@iamchrisborg
Photographer based in Europe
My passion for creating initially started with music at a young age and I was heavily involved in the DJ/nightlife scene in Malta. After a few years, it started to take a toll and I had realized that I needed a break. At that stage, I wasn’t doing anything creative and felt a big void in my life.
That’s when I discovered photography and especially fell in love with travel photography whereby I just loved capturing new locations both famous and unknown. These would range from landmarks, attractions to beautiful landscapes and nature. Being born in the UK and growing up in Malta you get used to a certain type of landscape. Malta is quite densely populated, with a lot of apartment blocks and traffic. It doesn’t have any mountains either, and hardly any trees and nature. Also, in Malta, we grew up with no wild animals really. So this is what made me fall in love with different types of landscapes and with wildlife.
"I clearly remember being in the Dolomites mountains for the very first time and felt like I had discovered this whole new world that I never knew existed!"
"Apart from the above-mentioned significant change in my life, I have just recently left Malta after living there for 30 years. I am now living full time on the road in a motorhome since the beginning of the year."
The leading reason to buy a motorhome was to travel with my family and we also have our dog with us. It also allows me to spend more time in the places I love and also, explore more new locations. Whereas before I would need to catch a flight out of Malta, rent a car, etc, I am now much more flexible. This has made a lot of locations easily accessible to me and I absolutely love being in the mountains and nature. As well as this, between working with tourism boards, hotels, and other brands, and filming or editing, I can spend my time in beautiful places across Europe instead of in one place.
During the summer seasons, I mainly go where I have work, mostly in central Europe, and when I’m not working I explore places nearby. In the off-season, things slow down a bit so we have a bit more flexibility. At the moment we have been in Slovenia for the past few weeks and loved it here. I am staying here as I will shortly need to head back to central Europe for some work in January, but after that, we plan to head to Turkey for a month or two before coming back to kickstart 2022 properly. The decision to go to Turkey or such countries is, above anything else, to experience something new, warm weather and some other factors.
I also have a few apps, my favorite being Park4Night, which helps me find any type of location whether it’s just a free parking spot, with services such as water electric, wifi, and so on, or even a full out campsite, which is what we normally use when visiting cities.
After having visited several different places, I noticed that Malta has influenced me tremendously. As I said, growing up there I got used to busy places, traffic, people, nightlife, blue water, boats, beaches, heat, and sun. So as soon as I got a taste of nature and how it is in different places, I felt a sense of freedom – especially in the mountains. I couldn’t believe I could go on a hike and only see a handful of people. This has made me appreciate these beautiful places. Now living in a motorhome, we spent the past few months roaming around Germany, Austria, South Tyrol, Czech Republic, and Slovenia with so much to see!
Though, to mention one place that deeply impacted me, it has to be Australia. This trip is not really photography-related, but those six weeks in Australia broke my feeling of routine. It was a high-pressure routine; I was initially working at a bank and starting my photography and videography business aside. As well, I did a lot of shootings that weren’t my cup of tea but were needed to continue growing, which also influences how you feel and your level of energy. My routine was work-based, trying to earn as much money as I could. Australia definitely helped me heal; around mid-way through the trip when we were traveling up the East Coast, I felt a real sense of freedom. It was a six-week holiday during which I didn’t do any work, which was needed to reset. It was at that moment I decided to work towards making that my life. Nowadays I focus more on my wellbeing and taking time for myself and doing things I love. A new project that is a result of this, is called Travel Tales. It’s our YouTube channel where we will be posting weekly youtube videos that we are filming in our free time. The project will document our adventures when I’m not working and show some photography, motorhome life, travel, and anything else that happens along the way!
I think photography is so fulfilling because of the surprise factor, the unknown. No photo is the same; every photo has a different story behind it, and therefore, the outcome ahead of it changes too. With outdoor photography, the weather is unpredictable, and it can make or break your photo. I also feel so happy revisiting a location during different conditions. It shows how varied the results can be. Similarly, I have some photos I initially didn’t feel like hiking for but then resulted in a print sale, a new job opportunity, or a well-received post on social media. So, not knowing what new opportunity is around the corner is what makes this work so gratifying.
OPPORTUNITIES
ARE AROUND THE CORNER
After all, it is all about problem-solving in this field. Whether it is working around how to get a shot at a specific time, battling weather conditions, or building a story for a video. With every new challenge, a new lesson is learned, and that is what I feel makes me better every day. For example, concerning the weather, it has happened that a client booked me for a full two-three of outdoor adventures and shootings, and obviously, if the weather is not on your side, the result is not always the best. In these situations, I try to explain to my clients how this influences the photographs I can deliver, and I aim for longer shoots to capture the best images.
New work with tourism boards, hotels, or brands normally comes through Instagram, although I am active on all other social media as well. I tend to stay in contact and exceed expectations which helps create loyal customers that come back to me. Tourism boards have booked me to create content for multiple years, and the same goes for hotels. Most people and businesses need to renew, innovate and update continuously, which also means that their marketing material and visual assets need to be updated. I always set expectations up front and then aim to overachieve so that I can rest assured that my clients will be happy and most probably come back to me. Over time, I have received very positive feedback with any video, photo, or social media campaigns, which puts me in a good state of mind to pitch ideas and work with clients on new projects.
I want to give my work my personal mark, whether photo or video. It should be different from other people/creators while always keeping it as realistic as possible. For some photos, I can edit a little more – colors can be pushed more in some than in others – but generally speaking, I like to keep a natural look. With the editing process, I want to enhance the photo to make it look as good as possible, be it for a client or social media.
I have taken many photos in many different places, for myself or clients, but only one photograph can make me feel like that first instant I truly experienced the beauty of nature. This photograph was taken when I went to the Dolomites for the first time, which is what I spoke about in the beginning. It was that mountain range that made me fall in love with nature, mountains, and landscapes, and I am still in awe of them every time I return to the Dolomites.
"It is amazing how photos can throw you back months, years, even decades, generating the same emotion with as much intensity while reminiscing about the experience."
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