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Paweł Mazur
@onelife_photostory
Best of the week 16 at #nomadict 2021
My name is Paweł, a phone photographer from Poland. Actually, my interest in photography derived from my passion for travel. One day, I realized how quickly life is running out and how little time we have on this beautiful planet. It is impossible to describe the day that one of your dearest and most important people in your life dies. When my mom passed away, I was confronted with the fact that today we are here, alive, and that tomorrow may not be there – not anymore.
"For me, travel is one of the things that allows me to make the most of my time here."
Quite frequently, we make a trip to Lake Chańcza where we have a cottage. It is located in the Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship, a rural province in south-central Poland where Świętokrzyski National Park is situated and numerous hiking and skiing trails can be found. I love this place because it is quiet and peaceful, surrounded by forests and nature, and it is 1.5 hours by car from the city I live in.
Every time we go there, we get up to watch the sunrise with a cup of coffee. Although I go to that place quite often, the beauty never bores me, it never gets normal and unnoticed. Every time I can find something new to photograph there and the day I took the winning shot, it was a frosty spring morning and colors started to slowly appear in the sky while swans were swimming near the shore of the lake – simply beautiful. I immediately knew there was a great shot hidden in this scene; I just had to wait to catch the swans passing by at the right moment.
As I always say, the best camera is the one we have with us, and the technical equipment doesn’t matter that much. It’s the vision and commitment that matters more – even the most expensive gear will not get up for us at sunrise or make it to the top of the mountain to capture the scene at the moment all comes together and the magic happens.
I took the winning photo with my huawei p30pro. I always try to shoot using manual settings in Pro mode, which allows you to save photos in RAW format and also have complete control over the settings. I edit the photo on my phone as well, in the Lightroom mobile App. I learned everything myself by watching YouTube guides and reading books and then just trying it out and practicing; Equipment is as good as we can use its capabilities.
With the winning shot I realized again that, no matter how many times we go to the same places, our ability and curiosity to perceive and notice new things is essential in order to continue discovering even in a known place, and to use it to create captivating photographs with any gear. This is a real lesson in creativity.
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