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Eric Hong
@erich.visuals
Best of the week 28 at #nomadict 2021
Unlike a lot of creators, I can’t vividly remember the first time picking up a camera. Neither can I remember my first photo. And I didn’t have any sort of catalyst that suddenly sparked my initial interest.
I just know that when I was younger my parents had a DSLR camera that they used for taking nice photos of family trips. Nothing professional, just for fun. And I know that I started to mess around with it at some point and that it slowly started to become more interesting – I ended up being the one that usually would carry the camera on trips, taking random photos of any kind of nature.
"What I do remember, though, is one trip to San Francisco when I was 14."
I was first getting on Instagram and social media during that age, and saw one particular photo of a cable car with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background that really amazed me. That evening I went out for sunset to the exact same spot and attempted to line everything up to get the shot. Obviously I wasn’t successful and I returned to the hotel feeling discouraged.
"After looking at more San Francisco photo spots, I saw another captivating photo of a light trail that I wanted to recreate."
I went out the next night and had my dad teach me how to do a long exposure. Although my photo looked nothing like the one I saw, it ended up being my first post on Instagram in 2018. That is partly what sparked my interest to learn more about how to improve my photography. After that trip I self taught myself about the technical aspect of cameras, lenses, post-processing, etc.
"I believe it was this technical aspect that made the spark complete, as I have always had a strong passion for technology and innovation."
Many years ago I tried art classes, but drawing or painting has never given me the same feeling that creating with a modern day camera has. Content creation combines digital technology with the physical beauty of the natural environment, and there is nothing else quite like it. It is proof that we are entering a new digital age.
So, photography and videography became the way for me to express my creativity and emotions. I love the rewarding feeling of seeing my vision come to life in a photo or video. It gives me a certain fulfilling sense of accomplishment that I have not been able to replicate with anything else.
Being exposed to social media probably had the biggest and most decisive impact when it came to discovering my passions. It gave me direction and started putting some puzzle pieces together. During late middle school and early high school I started to realize that I didn’t want to take the “normal” path. I started to do things for myself and not conform to what other people or “society” pressured me into doing. Seeing successful people sharing their stories and living a life of freedom on Youtube and Instagram really shaped my mindset. Social media has given me access to some once in a lifetime opportunities and has allowed me to connect with incredibly successful people and mentors.
"It is mind blowing how powerful of a tool it can be if used properly."
Overall, I’m continuously driven by a desire for success. Not just financially, in all aspects of life. Being only 17, it often gets stressful to decide how I want to live my life because I still have many decisions to make, but I just tell myself that I have plenty of time to decide. In the meantime I will just see where life takes me.
"And so, life took me to New Year’s Eve, 2020-21, when I captured the shot that won the Best of the Week contest at Nomadict."
For the past few months I had been doing school exclusively online due to the Coronavirus. Earlier in March was when it had all gone downhill. For almost that whole year I was feeling uninspired and unmotivated to do anything, even the things that I normally loved to do. I felt stuck and extremely tired. So I made a plan for myself to at least try to end the year on a good note. The day before, I spontaneously decided to drive up to a special lake in a forest not far from my home. In the summer and fall I frequently made the short 45 min drive up there to think and relax. It almost felt like a secret place to me because there were hardly ever any people in the area, usually I had the whole place to myself.
Since I had only gone during the warmer seasons, this was my first trip visiting it in the snow. I made the drive up into the mountains with my dad, and when we arrived at the lake in the forest it was incredible. I had never seen a lake completely frozen over like that before. I spent hours down on the ice, taking photos, videos, and just having fun again. Once all my drone batteries died, I decided it would be a good time to pack it up and head to a different location. I realized I had cut the timing pretty close and we were almost going to miss the sunset. We started to drive back along the route, with no particular destination in mind. The entire area is so beautiful that you could really stop anywhere.
"One of my favorite parts of that forest is a nearby mountain peak that towers above the treeline."
As we drove into the line of sight of it, the sky exploded. The entire sky was filled with vivid sunset colors and it was one of the most beautiful things I had seen that year. However, it was fading very quickly and I was scrambling to get the photos I wanted. The sun was setting and the light was fading rapidly. I remember after getting the shots that I was feeling very satisfied and felt like it would be a good time to head home and enjoy the last few hours of 2020 with my family.
I got back into the car and we started driving back – and after a minute of driving I immediately told my dad to pull over. In the vast valley next to the road there were incredible waves of fog weaving through the trees, with the sun setting behind and lighting up the clouds. I had never seen fog in that valley before, even though I had driven past there quite frequently. It felt so surreal and almost supernatural. Since the light was fading so quickly, I literally ran across the road and pulled out my camera behind the barrier.
"There was no thinking, just instinct."
All I wanted to do was just freeze that moment. I wanted to be able to look back on it in the future, and remember exactly how I was feeling, what I was seeing, and what I was experiencing. I remember having either an 85mm or a telephoto lens on the camera, but I quickly saw that it was too tight and I switched to a wider lens to capture the whole scene. After taking a couple photos, the previews showed that I was going to need a lot more dynamic range so I started to bracket and expose for the sunset in the back as well as the dark trees in the foreground.
I only had time to take a couple of photos due to the quickly fading light, but I knew as soon as I saw one of them that it was my favorite photo I’d ever taken. This is the photo that won Best of the Week. I stood there on the side of the road until it got completely dark. I felt happy and fulfilled for the first time in a while. After a year of going through a global pandemic, I finally felt like next year was going to bring something new and that everything would return to normal soon. What a way to end 2020.
Once I got to the post-processing at home, I realized that editing my favorite photo of all time was not going to be an easy task. I remember obsessing over the edit to make it perfect. I wanted it to convey the sheer surrealness of the light behind the trees and layered fog. I brought out the incredible colors of the sunset and contrasted them with the deep blues and bright whites of the trees, fog, and snow in the midground. My favorite part of this edit was looking back at the finished product and vividly remembering every detail that happened that day on New Year’s Eve. It took multiple days of changing little things here and there before I decided on the final edit.
"When I post process, the priority for me is the composition."
I don’t like my images to be cluttered with random trees and branches and signs. Less is more. A simple photo is often the most jaw-dropping one because the eye knows exactly where to go and doesn’t have to hunt around looking for the main subject or getting distracted. Since I was so rushed to beat the light, there ended up being some distractions in the shot due to trees and road barriers so I had to remove those. The little details add up and can drastically affect the “look” of a composition, where the eye is drawn to, and what it interprets.
I always used to think I lived in the most boring place ever, Oregon, but it wasn’t until I got older that I realized how lucky I am to live here surrounded by the incredibly diverse landscapes that Oregon has to offer. Life is all about exploring and experiencing new things, and this shot helped me remember to never cease doing so. That day was arguably the most transformative day of 2020 for me. It got me out of a deep rut and motivated me to keep going. Everyone gets stuck sometimes, and I know especially last year it was the case for a lot of people.
I learned that life doesn’t wait for you. If there is something in life that you want, you have to take action and go chase after it. Being spontaneous and seeking discomfort is the best way to break out of a negative cycle because it completely shocks your stagnant routine. Who knows what opportunities I would have missed out on this year if I hadn’t decided to plan that trip?
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