Julio Carvajal
@juliocarvajal
Best of the week 26 at #nomadict 2021
Last year, in 2020, I won Best of the Week 17, and in my story I explained how I fell in love with traveling and photography. I also spoke about the many volcanoes I have been able to hike and photograph in my beautiful home country Costa Rica, and abroad.
During the last year I’ve focused my career a lot more toward videography. I discovered the FPV and dived deep into it, building, flying, filming… Overall I invested a lot of time into learning and using these drones and it paid off, both in joy and in creative results.
"I have been able to partner with big names in the field and I managed to create some videos I am really proud of."
"I have always been a proactive person, most of the stuff I know I learned on my own."
The Internet is the best university out there but one of the things that had a huge impact on my development over the last couple of months is the collaborations I did together with other creators. This definitely proved and reinforced what is being said so often: Surround yourself with people with the same goals as you and there will be growth.
In addition to that, going together is great fun and a welcome support for when things don’t go as expected. When we went to Parque nacional Rincón de la Vieja – where this week’s winning shot was taken – for the first time, I couldn’t get any shot. A storm at the top of the volcano surprised us – we camped for 30 hours near the summit and it hadn’t stopped raining all that time. Building up your camp under the rain is one of the worst things that can happen when venturing out, in my opinion. And not being able to get any shot, of course. Not even one.
I had the goal of going back and this time I would study the weather properly to make sure I could get the photo I had in mind. After this bad experience in the mountains I downloaded a couple of apps to study the weather (at a basic level) and so far this has allowed me to live amazing moments and get great footage at these kinds of places – The second time at this volcano included.
"To get to Volcán Rincón de la Vieja you need to do a 24 KMs hike through the Costa Rican jungle, accompanied by lots of animals (snakes, tapirs, Jaguars, etc)."
The scenery is fantastic but it is till you get to the top of the volcano where things change and you can actually understand why this is one of the most beautiful places in Costa Rica (if not the most!).
We began hiking early in the morning and arrived right at sunrise. When I sent the drone up in the air, I could not believe the light and the conditions I was getting. I had to split my time into filming (4K video) and taking photos. The goal of the trip was to create the first cinematic video of Rincon de la Vieja Volcano – This place has been shot before so I tried to do something completely different, using video and trying to capture the sunrise light with the volcano in a unique manner.
"I have to admit that the conditions were perfect and that made everything 10 times better."
I was super happy to get those epic shots! And with the edit, I was able to transcribe the peace of mind that I had while seeing the sun glowing in front of us at the top of Rincón de la Vieja.
But, what I am most happy about after all, is the video I was able to create from that moment. This was the aim of the trip and feeling that I accomplished that with such an amazing result is incredibly gratifying. I can now showcase this Costa Rican gem, highlighted by the sunrise, through a video with FPV perspectives. It is available on my Youtube channel and I invite all of you to get to know this and other magic spots (in Costa Rica and abroad) through the content that I have been sharing there.
"En la montaña somos libres. In the mountains we are free."
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