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Noah Mäder
@noah.maed
Landscape photographer based in Switzerland
Not knowing what photography really meant, I always perceived it as kind of limited because the photographer would just take a picture of what everyone could see with their own eyes. As I got ahold of my own DSLR on my 16th birthday, this perception proved to be completely wrong. In high school we had Art as a subject taught by a teacher who was really passionate about photography and had us study the basics. He showed us all the functions of DSLRs and more importantly the interplay of ISO, shutter speed and aperture, and how it could affect the outcome of a picture. That’s where I really got to understand the vast possibilities of photography. Now I had my own camera – this opened up a whole new world of creativity for me. Often I would hit the streets after school and just take pictures of nearly anything and try out the various modes. The concept of learning by doing is what keeps me going the most, combined with the complete freedom of creation.
"I am free in what I shoot, how I edit and what I want to learn next - I am educating myself by experience."
"Since I am lucky enough to have parents that took me on travels a lot since I was a child, I developed this curiosity for unfamiliar places."
Despite, I am well aware of the beauty my home country (Switzerland) offers – it’s where I got my first landscape shots and where I still go for short trips to shoot over the weekend. Nevertheless, there’s nothing like the excitement I feel when diving into cultures that are so ‘new’ for me compared to the western one I grew up in and I am familiar with. The fact that cultures can be different in so many ways makes you observe and shoot a lot of things that you wouldn’t even bother looking at in your own country. For me this is a central aspect in photography because I always want to lay eyes on moments that go unnoticed by most people.
"Going abroad helps me to see the details that I didn’t notice before, and then when I am back home, I suddenly see them, as if I am looking at my country with foreign eyes."
To be honest, in most of my travels before my solo trip to Africa and the Middle East, there were many things that were left unseen. As a kid with my family I never perceived the trips we made to countries far away or nearby as travelling, but more as holidays. We would go from one rich nation to another just to relax, be away from home and enjoy certain things we don’t have at home. As I got older and started out with photography, I began to realize that this was kind of a “in your own bubble” holiday because we left our country but not our comfort zone, went to places that offered a high standard of living and didn’t really explore the real culture.
I spent a few days alone there before meeting up with a group with whom I’d travel through Tanzania, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Botswana and Namibia for five weeks – driving thousands of kilometers in an overland truck and camping in national parks at night, thousands of kilometers away from home. I had never traveled ‘alone’ before and it was quite a jump into the deep but looking back, I have to admit that it was probably the best kick-off to traveling by myself.
"I wanted to get out of my comfort zone so I could fully focus on photography - facing continuously new landscapes and environments and simply shooting all that I experienced."
It wasn’t always easy and pretty exhausting at times, but it worked. From great experiences comes good photography. I didn’t always feel comfortable or secure, but the friendly locals, all the animal encounters and the beautiful landscapes surely made up for that. It’s insane how you are used to see all these exotic animals online or on tv and suddenly you are there, amazed by their real beauty and feeling their presence, even getting used to it after some time. One time I woke up in the middle of the night, got out of my tent and almost walked into a zebra. We were camping near a waterhole and it was “normal” that a herd of zebras and a few elephants were just hanging around right next to our tents, unbelievable! Another great experience was our 2-day trip to the Okavango delta in Botswana where we went onto tiny little boats, two people each, paddled far into the delta and set up our tents on a small landmark. On the way there we would just casually pass a few hippos in the water. Later during a walk through the bushes of the delta, we saw a few elephants, wildebeests and baboons.
"It was not at all like a jeep safari, because the animals could approach us a lot easier and we would hear lions roar in the middle of the night while sleeping in our tent - it gave a completely different feel to it."
"During this travel every single minute was special and impressive, but I probably have to say the helicopter flight over the Okavango delta has been the most memorable and stunning experience of all."
It was a short 15-minute flight in a very small open door helicopter. If you visit the delta and just stay on the ground you can’t see the real beauty of the area – it seems a completely different planet from above! The rivers, the grassland and the trees in varying colors… The elephants, giraffes, hippos and zebras walking around and spread out over the delta… The perfect imagination of a peaceful paradise. And every few minutes when you would look down, the landscape had completely changed.
"I could never have imagined the diversity and richness of fauna, flora and landscape one relatively small area could provide."
"In the Middle East, where I went afterwards, my discovery was more about the people, their stories and the thousands of years of history of Jerusalem and the Arab culture itself."
I focused on shooting portraits and architecture in Israel and did a bit more of landscape in Jordan because of the beautiful Wadi Rum desert. I took it a little easier there, visited the cultural heritage sites, tried out local food and restaurants and had conversations with the locals. Africa was really all about getting the best shots I could whereas in the Middle East I felt way more relaxed towards photography, taking photos of the locals and the rich culture you can find on the street. I believe there is no better way to portray a culture than to show the faces of the locals and the stories in their eyes. As I was mostly used to shooting landscape before, I found great pleasure in trying something new. I love the rapport you have to build with the people, creating connections and building trust – not all of them like to be photographed and of course I want to respect them. After having agreed on taking pictures the challenge is to get a picture where someone is portrayed naturally and not really focused on you.
"Also, I had to find a new style of editing for portraits because it is obviously very different to the other genres."
"Those travels just roused my desire to discover more countries that are culturally completely distinct from what I am used to, a highly developed western environment."
I became so much more aware of my privileges and the luxuries I have access to in Switzerland. Travelling through less developed countries taught me to try not to worry about the things I don’t have but rather to appreciate the ones I do. This definitely increased my feeling of gratitude in everyday life. What I learnt from the most was meeting new people, especially the other travelers from all over the world, and exchanging our stories. When I grew up I was always taught that life is supposed to run pretty linear like you go to school, then to university and get a decent “normal” job afterwards, work till you are 65 years old and all in one shot. The more people I met, the more I realized that this isn’t true at all – life often doesn’t turn out to run this smooth and it’s often not even what people want. There are setbacks in all kinds of forms, and it’s totally okay to just pause your education or work for a bit if you feel the need.
"I met many people on my travels that just packed their backs, withdrew money from to the ATM and began traveling. Honestly, I admire that a lot because it requires a lot of courage."
"All the different people with their unique ways of living that I encountered on my travels helped me to overthink my own actions and reconsider if what I was doing or heading to at this stage in my life was really what I wanted."
This complemented what I had already learnt about shifting my focus away from meeting social expectations and the definition of “success”. After a severe accident I have been left with chronic pain and struggled a lot with that. The pain has been unbearable at times and has made life pretty hard to live. I learnt to accept the limitations and how to live with the pain day by day and year by year. Being confronted with reduced capacity, either at university or during my travels, still hurts. But I won’t perceive it as a big failure if it doesn’t work out as it would have before. I try more and more to concentrate on the things that really fulfill me and make me happy such as photography, traveling and my friends – because first of all I am just happy that I am still alive.
"Despite the pain, I try to enjoy everything I can do and do everything that’s within my possibilities."
"The same thing applies to photography - for me it's joy over performance and passion over money."
I started photography about three years ago so I am still at the very beginning of my journey, trying to learn and gain as much experience as I can, doing everything on my own pace. The ultimate goal for sometime in the future would be to actually earn some decent money with my work and become a “real” photographer with contracts and planned shoots for brands. If this door ever opens up I’d gladly enter, but if not it will still remain my most loved passion and that’s totally okay as well. I see photography as an escape from the thoroughly planned everyday life, where I can clear my head from worries, let creativity flow instead and try to fully embrace the beautiful moments I find myself in when taking pictures.
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