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Mathias Koch
@mathias.koch_
Best of the week 5 at #nomadict 2021
The underwater world is a world on its own that I have been intrigued by early on in my childhood. I was fascinated by the sea and the living creatures – big and tiny fishes and all the other weird but beautiful-looking creatures. While watching hours and hours of documentaries I was always wishing to experience and see all that myself; and so I went for a diving certificate as soon as I was able to. On my first dive, I had a small camera with me to show my friends and family what it looked like underwater, what is happening below the surface of the profound sea or crystal clear lakes.
"No one else I knew had dived before and I wanted them to see what I experienced."
I found more and more fun in photography because of the positive feedback on my diving pictures. At first, I wanted to concentrate particularly on underwater photography, and take more and more pictures above water too. Unsurprisingly, during my 5-week internship in Iceland, I realized how fascinating the rough nature and the mountains are, too.
Meanwhile, my wife had installed Instagram on my cell phone. The pictures I uploaded were well received by people and I had the ambition to create better and better pictures. We traveled to amazing places together which made it easier for us to create great content. This is how my passion for photography developed. It’s really nice to experience moments alone, but it’s even nicer when you can share them with someone.
"And the fact that we were able to turn our shared hobby into our second job is a real dream."
We started writing a blog for fun, and simply because it grew in popularity and therefore our Instagram reach, it became a “thing”. We never intended to pursue photography as a profession, but we got more and more requests from companies to work together. And nothing better could have happened to us than to be able to pursue our hobby as a profession. Although it can be very stressful and we work 24/7, photography remains our passion and recreation, which helps us to keep up with “work” and obtain energy from it.
"With our photography and the blog, we want to encourage as many people as possible to discover nature and make them aware of it."
So when I took the winning shot in South Tyrol and shared it, that was the ultimate aim too. Actually, we had planned to take this picture 2 days before, but we got lost on the way up and we wouldn’t have made it in time for sunset. I was very disappointed because the conditions were perfect that day. Nevertheless, to not be defeated by the circumstances, we looked for an alternative spot nearby to contemplate and shoot the sunset.
The next evening we left early and asked again for the right way, but since the whole route was out of town, we only had a few minutes left to take this picture. Luckily, it worked out! I tried to capture the reflection as clear as possible and I wanted the mountains to look like they were illuminated by the sunlight. There is a famous hut right next to it that has been seen on Instagram many times, but I never saw this angle of this place on Instagram before and loved it even more. I am usually very flexible at a spot and try out different perspectives, so I discovered this reflection spontaneously and was very excited as I did not have much time left until the sun went down.
When editing, I wanted the water to have a beautiful color and make it look calm and serene. In general, it is important to me to process the colors and the images as true to the actual scene as possible. In terms of gear, I had an ultra-wide-angle lens with 14 mm aperture 2.8 set on my Sony a7iii.
The biggest lesson of that day? That it can be good to inform yourself about the right way 😉 I usually find out about the hiking trail on Komoot, but unfortunately, I hadn’t saved this hike because I was very convinced I was on the right track and we didn’t have internet. It happens sometimes that we take small detours, but it was the first time that I got completely lost.
A new experience, a new lesson 🙂
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