Jorge Wan
@jrgvvn
Travel photographer based in Switzerland
Years ago now, I went on a trip with a couple of friends. One of them had bought a new camera paired with a 35mm lens and I was blown away by the results straight out of the camera, so I simply decided to save money to get my own one. I was still in school, so saving money for a camera was hard and saving money for regular traveling was impossible, but a year after I started, I finally got my first camera. Back then my experiments with photography were always realized with friends or family, on a couple of special occasions or with any random object I could find.
"Everything changed when I moved to Switzerland in 2013."
"I got my first job, which had a huge impact on my current path. It has been a struggle, since, with the job, I also got an immense stress into my life and needed to sacrifice a lot."
I work as a Network Engineer and usually I work for long hours, in a very demanding environment which requires a great amount of mental strength. But, and that is the good part of it, I was also rewarded with opportunities to travel regularly and discover amazing places. With each place visited my enthusiasm for photography grew. So far it had been a hobby, but with my job it quickly became a vital part of my life as it allowed me to escape from my daily environment.
"Besides a hobby, it had now become a source of balance and peace, a wonderful tool and activity that works like therapy."
One day my girlfriend asked me: “Why don’t you record all our travels and post them on a social media platform?”, and so I did. I kept an ordinary Instagram account for a long time and the posts I used to share were colourful and vibrant. I was pleased but not totally satisfied with my profile. Several weeks ago I realised that my preference and style had changed now I had learnt so much more about photography, had traveled more and broadened my perspectives. So I decided to create a new account from scratch, having a more dramatic and pale mood. When I edit my photos, I try to find a balanced result that seems natural but still emphasizes some colors, shadows or lights and give it some personal touch. Important for me is the first impact on people. I want people to look at my pictures and say: “this is the place I want to go next.”
"What I share are moments of my travels and hope they can inspire people to travel around the world and discover amazing places out there."
I don’t consider myself a landscape photographer nor a cityscape photographer, I don’t seek a specific target to shoot. I just capture experiences, moments that I’ve lived, in a thought-through manner. I believe these types of images convey the most as they naturally have the energy, the vibes, the intensity of emotion.
It made me travel in time, back to my childhood to my old memories. It reminded me of when I was a kid and watched those magical scenes in the movies from Disney or Pixar. It was real and unreal at the same time. There’s a particular scene in the movie UP, when the house starts to float with the balloons – Cappadocia was just like the scene.
"Each of my experiences boost my photography skills. I always try to search for possible improvements and any new trip I make is a new lesson."
There’s always room for amelioration and there’s always something that an experience or moment can teach me so I can reshape my photography and my approach toward it. I remember my trip to Ireland, where I didn’t want to carry all my gear because it would become heavy and hard to travel. During the trip we decided to pass by The Dark Hedges and I had only two lenses, a 16-35mm and a 50mm. I always thought that I would never use longer lenses in Ireland… Guess what? I missed the photo opportunity that so beautifully presented itself. I couldn’t get the compression I needed and all the photos I took became simply ordinary. It was such a wonderful place and I missed the opportunity – such a mistake. Since then, I haven’t been lazy and carry all my gear so I don’t miss out on spontaneous shots.
"Any person, any situation and any experience allows me to develop myself and become better."
In my photography as well as a person; for both I have to deal with the diversity and changes, adapt and adjust, and find out what works best to get the most out of it. My trips to Jordan and Japan illustrate that perfectly. I had amazing experiences in both places and they brought my vision from one side to the other, from one world to another. Jordan is more natural, has the beauty of being ancient and due to the natural materials used for its architecture everything has this same kind of color in different shades. Petra in particular feels sacred, the constructions are simply amazing. Wadi Rum is like Mars, no wonder many Sci-Fi movies were filmed there, and Wadi Mujib transfers you to an adventure movie.
"Japan, in contrast to Jordan, is more modern, colorful and everything very “anime”.
The huge skyscrapers in Tokyo set off to the tiny houses and shops. Kyoto is historical and imperial, and also has the divergence between new and ancient. Osaka, I felt, is like a giant shopping mall. So these places brought me very different experiences, though despite the obvious cultural differences they have many similarities on the baseline: Both countries are beautiful, with amazing landscapes, lovely people and delicious food.
However, from the most ordinary people to the most fascinating, from the most boring situation to the most interesting, and from the most terrible experience to the most amazing one… I believe there’s always something that we can extract from them, learn from and as a result become a better version of ourselves.
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