Sjoerd Bracke
@sjoerdbracke
Best of the week 15 at #nomadict 2020
The story behind the winning photo takes me back to 2017. The year where it all started for me, photography-wise! I traveled with my girlfriend Sanne to South-East Asia, the beginning of the trip of our lifetime. Seeing the world and experiencing different cultures has always been our main reason to travel. But of course, we brought a camera to capture moments we wanted to remember.
"A simple one, a beginner camera, nothing special."
Many countries in South-East Asia are well known by most of the people who travel. We searched for the lesser known spots, countries that aren’t top of mind for most people. Sanne and I both traveled a lot from a young age on already, so we skipped the obvious backpack destinations in Asia like Thailand or Vietnam. We decided to head to China, which we considered to be a more challenging travel destination and the landscapes promised to be breathtaking.
"We had been traveling for three months already by the time we arrived in China."
Meanwhile, photography got me and sharing my favorite photos on Instagram became something I enjoyed a lot. We even bought a drone in Hong Kong to add a new perspective to the photos we shared. A question I am asked often, is how I learned photography. We both started it as a hobby and learned a lot from videos on YouTube during this trip. The key is to go out as much as possible and get better at it by doing it.
This trip to China helped me a lot in growing my audience online. Yangshuo and Zhangjiajie were both locations beyond our expectations and the photos we took are probably our favorite ones of our entire trip. The winning photo is taken in Zhangjiajie National Forest Park. This incredible park is known for the Avatar film and absolutely blew our minds. The morning we took the photo, we first doubted to go up because the weather was really cloudy and rainy. However, we decided to take our chances and entered the cable cars. I was filming with the GoPro because there was just a really small window which made it impossible to shoot with our camera. Then suddenly this insane rock formations appeared.
"I quickly changed the GoPro settings to take these photos. No manual settings, no expensive camera needed."
When we arrived on top, we enjoyed many clear views of the National Park. We spend three days in the National Park to see all of it. It’s possible to do several hikes and it’s quite easy to avoid the big crowds. This place is well known by the Chinese tourists which means that it’s quite busy at cable car stations and in busses. That’s why I highly recommend you to go that extra mile and hike to different viewpoints to enjoy them without anyone else! Interestingly, we’ve just seen a few non-Chinese tourists in these three days, which confirms that it’s not super popular for foreigners yet! Nothing like Thailand or Vietnam.
"I want to finish this story with a lesson I learned during my travels."
This specific morning proofs that bad weather is not an excuse! Some places appear to be more beautiful when it rains or when it’s a bit cloudy. And as you may know, weather changes fast! Looking back at all my travels and the photos we’ve taken, I can say that very often the best days started with bad weather and turned out to be one of the most beautiful ones! And last but not least, the most unique photos at “popular” places are taken in unusual weather conditions. Get out there!
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