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Stephan Thom
@stephanthm
Best of the week 47 at #nomadict 2021
Documenting special moments in my life and capturing them for posterity is just magical for me. Over the years, the search for new places and new perspectives has become my passion. The moment when I finally arrived at a location and found the perfect position, and when, after a little waiting, the first rays of sunlight fall on my lens, is something extraordinary for me.
"This week’s winning shot is very special in that sense as it has been planned carefully, but I was still very new to landscape photography and there were many other photographers with the same idea."
We had booked accommodation near the summit and spent a lovely evening/night in the Fermeda hut in the Dolomites, Italy. At 3 o’clock, the alarm clock rang and we hiked the last few meters to the summit. As I had not been shooting outdoors (at famous places) too much yet since I just turned to landscape photography, I was totally intimidated that morning by the many photographs with tripods, graduated filters, and other tools (I had none of them with me). Nevertheless, I did my thing and took photos. I ran like a wild meerkat from place to place to find nice compositions and views, while everyone else clamped firmly to their tripod and continuously took a picture from the same position. After the sun had risen, I sent my former drone just a little up in the air, which resulted in the winning shot.
I aimed to capture the mountain peaks from a different point of view; with the two people in the foreground, I also wanted to show the proportions and convey something adventurous to the viewer. When editing, the first goal was to find a good balance between image noise and adequate quality. The Mavic Air 2, unfortunately, took the pictures with a high level of noise and low dynamic range. I think I managed the balance well. I also wanted to bring out the increasing backlight.
As mentioned in my previous story shared on Nomadict, Try Fail Repeat is my way to improve my work. I like to try out new things and see per photo how I can combine the individual components of image processing. I search for uniqueness in uniformity, so each photo gets the attention it deserves, and at the same time, my work matches together and conveys a style/mood. Above anything else, though, I want to feel the photo – even the RAW file – and I can enhance and convey emotions through editing. I consider an image as ready when I achieve that. For this winning photo, I used Lightroom for grading and Photoshop for cleaning up and the final adjustments.
The world has some amazing views and natural phenomena for us to become aware of. That I can experience at least a part of these is something to be thoroughly grateful for. As a photographer, it makes me happy to share these moments and enable others to see different parts of the world as well. Now it can be daunting to see so many other photographers doing the same thing at the same spot, but that doesn’t reduce the greatness of your own experience and the photographs you create. This winning photo taught me to not let others confuse me and do my thing – and I’d highly recommend others to do the same!
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