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Noah Mäder
@noah.maed
Best of the week 44 at #nomadict 2020
Since we last spoke (read Noah’s original story here), I changed my approach toward social media and the marketing of my own photography. For a long time, I had the aspiration to make some money with my photography. I used to try a lot of things to monetize my photography such as putting them on stock image websites and partner with publishing agencies to make a calendar or other items like that, all just to make some money with my pictures. Meanwhile I was aware that, given the rewards, it just wasn’t worth the effort and it wasn’t worth what I valued my pictures to be honest. At some point I decided that it was better to not sell my pictures instead of selling them for a price way below its worth.
Something similar happened with my approach toward social media; the way I look at it and the importance I allocate to it changed and I became more realistic and less influenced by the effects of social media. I used to be eager about likes and engagement and everytime a picture would get a lot less likes than the others I was questioning myself. I am kind of a perfectionist when it comes to my pictures; I can spend months just editing and re-editing a shot because I am not satisfied with the outcome and I would always make six or seven versions of an image with almost unnoticeable differences, then ask my friends a hundred times which one they like more and make them go crazy, finally choosing one and at the end still make last minute changes before uploading it. And even after uploading, I would often delete the image because I was still not satisfied. Obviously this doesn’t apply to all my images, for some I need a five minute edit and then I just upload them. However, when an image I spent a lot of time on and which I thought was outstanding compared to my other photos gets little recognition, I would be consumed by this “mystery” and the worries connected to that, questioning myself why this happens and what I did wrong.
After all, I came to the realization that it is just social media and that likes don’t determine in any way the quality of my images. I have had images that I thought to be rather uninteresting and generic shots that went through the roof (by my modest standards). So I stopped caring about engagement and the tendencies on social media. Obviously I like it when a lot of people enjoy an image, but it doesn’t control my personal view towards the quality of my images anymore. Finally I realized that I should be doing it just for myself even if no one would see it. My aspiration for now is to go out and shoot, live in the moment and enjoy photography as my passion and to try to get the best possible images from my perspective – not worrying too much about all the rest, just like I did with the winning shot.
WINNING PHOTOGRAPH
BEST OF THE WEEK 44
Previous to this shot, Switzerland had just been put into lockdown due to the COVID-19. It was a new and difficult situation. Everything non-essential for society had been closed, all my lectures from university had been cancelled and some professors basically told us to learn all the content for the exams by ourselves. Obviously there was not much to do anymore besides being at home and trying to get myself motivated to work for university. It didn’t work too well for me and it only got worse with every day I didn’t go out.
It was still allowed to go hiking, complying with the social distancing rules, but as the tourist industry was closed too, there were no running cable cars anywhere. What seemed a bad situation turned out to be positive because a lot of people won’t go hiking if they cannot use a cable car for at least a part of the journey. This meant that if I would go, I’d have the normally crowded places all for myself. So after a few weeks of lockdown, I really wanted to get away from the negative energy, reset my mind and change the environment.
It is located in the Alpstein massif which is by far my favorite area to photograph so far. It is a small mountain range in central Switzerland where I can get in less than two hours from where I live in Zurich. I would often leave at noon, hike up somewhere, set up my tent, shoot the sunset, sleep, shoot the sunrise and be back in Zurich by noon again. A perfect day trip for me.
Whereas you would usually take a cable car for the bigger part of the ascent I now had to hike all the way up. With the heavy backpack I needed about 4-5 hours to reach an altitude of 1900. I was beyond exhausted when I got there but needless to say, it was definitely worth it. The Alpstein is pretty famous for a lot of upright standing layers of stone and rock as you can see on the image.
"Those narrow ridges and peaks standing tall, all lined up beautifully, just looked mesmerizing to me."
The popularity of the place kept me from going there until now – with a mountain hut/ restaurant right on the top it is a popular spot and usually packed with tourists. But now, I had all this beauty almost completely for myself. I could set up my tent right on top of one of those ridges and enjoy a really peaceful evening after an exhausting hike.
While waiting for the sun to set I got company by some professional photographers who seemingly had the same idea as me. It was really nice chatting a bit with them as I got to know firsthand about their experiences as professional photographers and all the risks that come with it. They gave me a few tips and things to consider if one aspires to be a photographer that really got me thinking.
"The most important thing they told me was that you should always try to stand out with your photography while also staying true to your own style."
This is challenging, considering that most professional photographers need attention or “engagement” regarding their work or else wouldn’t be able to make a living out of it. So sensing what type of images are fashioned by the public at the moment is necessary and looking at successful work of other photographers as well, to see if you could shoot such an image or apply ideas to your own work. I do understand this, though at the same time it makes me wonder… How much are you really able to create what you like and how often are you doing things because you know it will be received well by an audience? Where is the balance and how do you protect your passion?
After chatting a bit with these guys the sun started going down. It was a beautiful sunny spring day with no clouds. As I had set up my tent right next to the best viewpoint, I had already found the best spot. The sun really set at 8pm at that time of the year and this shot was taken around 5-6 pm. There is just something about that light that I love. Most people I know find the light most beautiful when it turns really red, right before the sun disappears behind the horizon. Though I also love the late afternoon light where the light is still brightish and the sun is still relatively high, but has this golden glow. And that’s how this shot came together. Landscape covered in gold, the first ridge standing out while the smaller ones in the background faded away in the haze that had appeared.
With the edit I wanted to embrace the given light conditions and I had envisioned an image of a golden/yellowish monochrome mountain range with a lot of peaks prominently rising into the sky. I wanted to create an image where someone would look at and immediately say: “Wow where is that? I would like to visit that place!” I think I have achieved it because personally I feel a bit like that when I look at it, despite the fact that I just did very few basic things with the edit in terms of light in order to make the peaks in the background really visible and add character to it. The ridgelines from this spot (Schäfler) go on for kilometers into the direction of the highest mountain Säntis in the Alpstein region and you can see this whole ridgeline from the Schäfler.
"So it doesn’t matter when you go there or how you edit a photo, in my opinion it always looks impressive."
"This photo represents a day of significant physical effort which was absolutely worth it."
It was a nice little break of the tense everyday life during a pandemic and especially a lockdown where outdoors activities are absent. This one-day outing felt like a mini holiday and was a much needed break for my mental health and from ceasingly studying for exams. It was very relaxing spending some time alone in the mountains. Just me, my camera, and an amazing view from out of my tent.
These are the moments that I remember when I feel resistance or hesitation toward an activity that I have to step out of my comfort zone for. It always pays off and there’s no better feeling than that. A combination of excitement, happiness, reward, accomplishment, and strength, together with that great feeling that’s being released when exercising outdoors, finding peaceful solitude after a hectic period and contemplating the always impressive creations of nature.
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