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Giulia Biral
@giuliabxx
Best of the week 9 at #nomadict 2020
My interest in photography started when I got a phone with a decent camera, I guess my old Nokia N73 and then my iPhone4S, and I began to take photos. A lot of people told me I had a good eye but I never invested in it as I thought it wasn’t really my thing. In summer 2015 though, I bought a GoPro Hero Session which I soon sold to replace it with a GoPro Hero 5 Black because I found the other one to be limited. I enjoyed using these cameras but I still wasn’t convinced it was my ‘thing’ so in 2017 I decided to get a Sony a6000 and with that camera I properly started doing photography. I began to study the basics from composition to settings and I got very passionate, watching a lot of tutorials about everything related to taking photos and videos. Then, a while after the first drones had came out I got super excited about aerial photography so I bought a Mavic Air. I use it only sometimes as I am always a bit anxious of flying it.
"With regard to travel and nature, I believe this interest has come naturally since I lived near the Dolomites."
Already as a three year old my parents took me skiing during winter and in summer we went on hikes. Having the Dolomites so close to me has been a blessing! I think having all this nature and beautiful landscapes around me ignited something inside me and provoked the desire to travel. I love my country, I love mountains, and I always try to find and discover new places. There’s still so much to explore, but whatever new places I may visit, the Dolomites will always have a spot in my heart. I kind of stopped going in the Dolomites around my 16 to 22 years old:
"I was kind of sad, I didn’t really know what to do with my life and school in general took away my desire of going on adventure and living life."
Now looking back I feel like I was a spoiled kid, as I didn’t know how lucky I was to live in such a beautiful and famous place known in the whole world. I have some sweet memories with my family there, especially with my dad from when I was young. When my dad passed away six years ago, I was mad at life and I let go of everything. Photography helped me to get out of my daily routine; it was my way of moving on, of expressing myself. I realized to not take everything for granted, life is so ephemeral. Being immersed in nature always makes me feel so relaxed and free. It makes me forget how small my problems are. Only later I realized that my passion for photography really started after my dad had died.
Having this memories immortalized in an image, is just amazing. I really enjoy to capture what I see and feel when in nature; it’s the best feeling in the world and hopefully with my images I can provoke within people a tiny bit of this feeling. I want people to understand the story behind the image or just for them to imaging it and make them feel something, hopefully motivating them to go out and experience it themselves.
"I like to take the viewer into the photo by putting some elements like footprints, trunks or flowers in the foreground also to give the shot some depth, and this winter I took up a more minimalistic style."
When I edit them I try to give them a bit of vibrance to make the atmosphere pop. To be honest though, I’m always ready when it comes to take a photo but the editing process is completely another world. I can spend months without even starting to edit or just changing little things in the edit all the time; I’m still working on finding a unique style. At the end of the day, I’m happy to just go out and take photos.
Whatever others may think or however I edit, photographing makes me feel carefree for a day. The jobs I have had were quite stressful so photography is an escape that helps me to take distance from my job and relax. After work I feel the need to unplug so during the week I take some walks close to where I live. In weekends I try to go out with some other photographers, go have some adventures and be grateful for being alive and healthy. My work and life in general so far thought me not to take everything for granted, to live my life to the fullest and to overcome every problem.
"Sometimes we don’t understand how lucky we are; life is not about only surviving, you have to take some chances sometimes, risky or not."
Thanks to photography I can go explore some new or known places and being able to see some insane landscape makes me come alive again, like that day of the winning shot. I took the photo in Passo Giau; I woke up at 3 am and the weather forecast was giving snow so I knew it was going to be an epic day. When my friends and I left it was raining, and when we arrived around Cortina it started snowing.
"We were all cheering for the weather as it tends to be very cloudy and gloomy and I love to take photos in these conditions."
Usually when we go take some photos we do a lot of kms and that day we went to Lake Braies, Lake Dobbiacco, Lake Anterselva and lastly we tried our luck with Passo Giau as it was on the way back home. The traffic signs said that it was closed but nothing or no one was stopping us from getting there so we decided to go up anyway being very careful. The road had some snow as it had snowed all day but we slowly got up and stopped along the way to take some drone shots and this is one of them. When we arrived on top, the sky was on fire. It was a day that I will never forget.
Of course I would love to travel more abroad to see what other countries have to offer, but but with my job I can’t really make everything work out. It takes a lot of patience, and I will have. Because I know I will travel, some day. For now I am an avid explorer of places in Italy and nearby, dedicating my free time to adventures and photography. Thanks to photography I met a lot of beautiful people that share the same passion for natural landscapes and the Dolomites. I love to hang out with them, they have different ideas and see things that I didn’t catch myself. It’s a really nice way of learning. In general, photography definitely played and still plays a big role in my life. Ever since my dad passed away, I found this hobby that made me realize how beautiful this world is and that I should not waste my life just by surviving.
"I wish one day to call it my job but I’ll also be happy if it stays just a passion. Because it’s a passion that gave and always will give such a good feeling. A feeling of happiness, gratitude, freedom and adventure."
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