First time when I understood that photography is something different and a unique way of capturing your life is when I started to use my moms old film photo camera to take photos of a sunset. The sun was setting down behind the forest it was so calm that evening that this calmness, peace, got into my body. It was really magical, I felt that time had slowed down and it was a “still-life” kind of moment. I felt inspired to spend my time in the nature, taking photos of different locations in Lithuania.
A lot little things happened in the past and Lithuania and Iceland have become my home lands, inspiring me in their own diversity. Lithuania is mostly flat, with a lot of forests, calm nature, many lakes and access to the Baltic Sea, while Iceland is rough, with lava mountains, harsh wind, rain and snow; completely the opposite in terms of weather and landscape, like Yin & Yang.
Nature shows us how time flows. It is always flowing, moving and changing. When you go to the river, there’s never the same water in the river. It has changed. So nature teaches me how to accept changes, embrace them and allow yourself to let go of the old and trust that there will be something more ahead, something different and beautiful. The only thing that is constant in this world is change; when I revisit some of my favorite spots in Iceland or Lithuania I can see that they are the same, but different.
Iceland is a really unique place, I cannot explain how this place has influenced me or my photography. I think after visiting Iceland your life is changing in a way, it feels like being on another planet because unlike normally, you can actually feel that you are on planet Earth, and you are an Earthling. Though, you are just a visitor of this marvellous place of insane diversity of plants, sights and animals. It makes me think more about the environment issues what we are all having. Ice is melting, really fast, and it makes me wonder about my life choices as a human and how my choices are affecting the environment. Do I really want to make fireworks in New Years Eve..? It creates so much pollution and all the animals are so scared of fireworks – not just dogs and cats, but imagine forest animals.
This is also something that I want to convey with my photographs, inspiring people to go outside and enjoy the outdoors without leaving a footprint on her skin. I want to make people feel something, evoke the positive emotions and the desire to see it with their own eyes, even trying to photograph it from their own personal perspective. When I edit a photo, I think about what the other person will see in this photograph, how he will perceive it? What feelings this image will create? Sometimes I go through a lot of challenging moments with myself and the photograph itself to find the right way to tell the story. I want to capture that arctic feeling in my photographs, to make someone feel the roughness and harshness of those mountain peaks, to let them feel the clouds hovering around mountain tops.
I learned how to look at places and myself from different points of view. It are the different places that make me feel something new, something I haven’t felt before. And it are the new beginnings that make my life more colourful. I want that my canvas are full with colourful moments, so I will keep going on adventures and accepting challenges. I will always make sure to bring out the best of myself, being the author of my own book.
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