Tobias Gruebler
@tobi_gruebler
Outdoor enthusiast based in Germany
My name is Tobi Gruebler, I am 35 years old and a passionate hobby photographer based in Düsseldorf, Germany. I started photography in the way I do it by now only six months ago, but my passion started way earlier. I used to have a small digicam that I bought for a cheap price in supermarket because I wanted to capture the beautiful colors of the sunset. Also, I was often taking random photos with the old Kodak camera of my dad and I always felt super excited to get the photos developed. Looking at the developed photos would bring me back to the special moment that I took the shot. So photography was somehow already there in my childhood, and it’s a feeling I’ve never lost. In fact, this passion for photography only got stronger.
"When I am walking around I feel like I have an invisible lens in front of my eye that is always there, so I guess photography is involved in my everyday life, if I want it or not."
"What got the stone rolling towards uptaking photography more seriously was a documentary about India."
It’s called ‘Tales by light’ and was made by Simon Lister. His visual storytelling skills are great, I got caught by an overwhelming emotion while watching it. This moment lighted the passion or urge within me to express myself through the art of photography. I want to be a creator, to reach the world by that means, to touch people and to awaken emotions they carry within them that they hadn’t been aware of so far. To me, photography is all about expression. Expression of emotions, of feelings, of myself. This is what I try to apply in my photography: going out, breathing in the surrounding nature, shooting and taking on compositions that feel right and then relying on my emotions when post processing the photos. I want to get the best out of it without overdoing it, keeping the scenery real but still adding emotion to the photo with colors and bringing out details that I want to be seen.
"I try to follow a line that includes all these aspects that ‘should’ be run through in photography, but the aspect of bringing to life emotions and feelings in an image is what inspires and fascinates me the most."
Nevertheless, it’s kind of difficult to tell where inspiration exactly comes from. I guess for me it’s about spirituality in the first place. I feel the desire to bring out what’s within me. Then, there’s the work of others and the impact it has on me. When you achieve that as a photographer, catching attention, provoking emotions and taking the viewer somewhere, in addition to having produced a technically ‘correct’ photo, it’s something very strong in my opinion. To be able to put emotion into an image and to bring alife an indescribable feeling is what fascinates me. It’s because of this that photography never bores me, because to me, emotions are never boring. They always change, and in addition, there are a million ways to express them in a photo using composition and editing. This is what keeps me going, what makes me want to improve without stagnation. In photography, learning never stops, creating never stops…
"Like old Japanese karate teachers say: “Karate is like hot water. If you don’t heat it up constantly it will cool down”. And this goes for everything."
"It’s surely also because of my childhood that I love traveling."
I used to visit the Alps and Scandinavia a lot; hiking in the Austrian Alps and going around in Norway, Denmark and Sweden, often finding myself canoeing in a fjord and spending the night in a tent on one of the small islands, where I witnessed all the breathtaking views and joined the live of the natives. Even if I was spending quite some time from home, I never got homesick. Actually it was the opposite; no matter where I was, I never wanted to leave. I feel like I am bound to nature. I am based in Germany, that’s what I say. But if I look at how I really feel, I could say that I am based on Earth. This planet is my home without any boundaries in my mind. Boundaries do not exist when it comes to relationships among humans, especially not when it comes to the connection between human beings, nature and animals. I think that is why I feel like a globe wanderer, and I think that is actually normal. Spiritually, nobody is tied to a location just because it was the place of birth. I see it as the starting point of a great journey. Sometimes the journey can’t take you far away, but sometimes it does and I believe that if you are able to, you should try.
"Try to get to see a variety of places, interact with different cultures… This is also why I love watching portrait/human photography, because the image is telling you a story of a whole life."
Although it’s not just about photographing these people or capturing these stories. Wandering around the globe is about hearing different languages, living with others and experiencing diversity and similarities. It’s amazing! The people, the environment, the landscapes… It makes me feel like I am part of this live that is happening right now. That’s also why I really appreciate hiking, near home or on a trip. Being in the middle of the nature that was created, that created itself, is energizing and refreshing. It calms me down and makes me feel part of something big. I feel invited and welcome to a place where I feel I belong to but where I am guest at the same time.
"Taking pictures is something I really enjoy because it can bring me back to a feeling I had."
I can look at the image and get lost in memories. With photography, you can show where the magic happens; the structures in the sky, the colors, natural creations, landscapes… I like to combine it all in one picture, including a person somewhere in the view to put everything into perspective. A tiny person in a vast landscape, which at the end, is just a very small part of the whole. This is what I want to achieve with my edits, recreating that feeling I had when I took the shot, so it is able to regenerate that feeling when looking at the shot, in me or someone else.
"It’s just special… after coming home from a travel, a photo is able to put you right back there, activating all your senses, making you feel how you felt."
I want to create something that takes you back there not just with your mind, but with your whole body. Something that takes you over for a couple of seconds and recharges your battery. With my photography I want to open a door to my world, to how I feel things and hopefully it can take someone to somewhere different from the daily rush. And when coming back, I hope it’s with something beautiful. From that moment a connection is build. We are not always aware and we often don’t think about it, but we continuously build connections between people, things and the world, all being linked to each other, to someone or something.
"This sounds romantic or spiritual, but that’s how it works."
"In this regard, Bali has been a life changing experience for me, it’s hard to explain."
For a long time a have the feeling and thought that we are all connected to each other and to this planet, but this trip was the journey of my live. To me, this was and is the proof that I am right. I really think that maybe someone is supposed to live in a different place from where one was born, but one has to figure out by oneself by following the inner compass. Being on the other side of this planet, meeting nice people in a whole different culture and being able to see how they manage their everyday live was amazing. A very different lifestyle that made me feel truly calm. That made me not only realize, but really feel that something goes wrong back home. That we are made to follow our inner guide and that that is the right way of living. I have a strong desire to visit this place again and again and so I do. The next time will be for two months; I want to connect even more with the locals.
"Of course there are more places I want to visit, such as Nepal, Sri Lanka and Scandinavia again but this time with a different state of mind, a deeper consciousness, than I had the first times that I went. And photography will definitely be part of these journeys."
With the years, with the travels and with the experiences, I see myself becoming more calm and mindful to enjoy life to the fullest. I see myself following my inner guide much more. Besides, I see myself improving my photography a lot, obtaining the skills and knowhow to take and edit the photos as how I want and to achieve with them what I wish to achieve. Photography let me discover parts of me that I wouldn’t have discovered otherwise, so I want to continue with it and ameliorate. It helped me to listen to myself much more and I realized that I am more emotional than I thought. Everyday life builds up a wall so all the stress, chaos and negative energy from others doesn’t affect you that much. That’s why everyday life feels automatic and it happens that we are not aware of our feelings.
"In my case, photography brings back to me what I deeply desire; life in nature, the feeling of being part of it and most importantly, to live it consciously with my full being."
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