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Victor Boucher
@vbchr
Best of the week 18 at #nomadict 2021
My photography journey started a long time ago. When I was little, my parents offered me a small compact camera that I used a lot when we were on vacation. I remember one summer in the mountains, where I spent hours trying to photograph marmots and get the best picture possible!
This passion gradually intensified, and in 2018 I was offered my first SLR. It was a revelation, and I immediately wanted to learn how to use it well. My goal was to be able to take pictures as beautiful as those of the photographers I could see in magazines or on Instagram. At first, I tried almost every style of photography: landscape, portrait, urban, animals, concert, sports, and even sneakers! However, landscape photography always attracted me the most.
"It was the genre that I enjoyed most putting energy in, shooting and editing. This trend was confirmed when I was able to go to Iceland."
I was 16 years old and looking for an exchange trip abroad, my main goal was improving my English. I stumbled upon a youth volunteer work camp in Reykjavik with a photography theme. The objective of this camp was to enable young people coming from different countries to live together and collaborate, discover nature and the Icelandic culture and do some actions for the environment like cleaning a beach. Several excursions were planned; one of them would enable the youngsters to spot and take a picture of the famous puffin. Instantly, the goal of the trip became my own and I signed up.
"During an outing with the group, we discovered the beautiful black sand beach of Vík."
I could take many pictures of the beach but what I wanted more than anything was to see and photograph the symbol of Iceland: the puffin. We then went to the end of the beach and climbed up a little to have a view of the beach. The weather was catastrophic, rain poured down in torrents, and it was very cold. So, it didn’t take long before the group took their pictures and started to go back to the van. But I wanted to stay a little longer to enjoy the view and take the last picture. Suddenly, a puffin landed about ten meters away from me. I took out my 75-300 lens that was in my bag immediately, and for two minutes, I didn’t stop taking pictures to be sure to have a perfect one! I took photos from all the possible angles. My mother told me before leaving that she wanted a picture of a puffin to hang in the living room, so I photographed the puffin with that in mind. The bird finally flew away, but two minutes had been enough to take a lot of pictures, unlike the members of the group who had not even seen this beautiful bird.
At the time, I was just concentrating on the camera settings and on the focus setting that I had to switch to manual because of the rain. It’s when I looked at the photographs on my computer the same evening that I relaxed and happiness within me was released: the focus was not bad on most of them and the pictures were well exposed. My lens was kind of fogged up because of the cold as well, but miraculously, it stayed all clear and clean while capturing the puffin.
At first, I told myself that I would edit all my pictures when I would get back home in France, but I was impatient and I edited my favorite pictures the same night! I tried several editing styles before arriving at the final version that I posted on my Instagram account. The edit is pretty standard compared to what I usually do, but I tried to be more neutral. I tend to go far when editing, even if it sometimes means losing the authenticity of the original landscape. For this one, I didn’t want to modify it too much because it’s very good as it is and also it reminds me of the vision I had at the very moment itself. You can see on the before/after shot that the pictures are quite similar.
I use the Adobe Suite to edit my images and the software I use the most is Adobe Lightroom, but also Photoshop when necessary. For this picture I only used Lightroom. In general, the process contains several steps. I retouch my photo one time and I stop only when I get a result I like. If I feel convinced with the result after the first attempt, I put the photo aside and move on. If it’s not the case, I retouch the photo again sometime later and I compare it to the first edit. I repeat this as many times as it takes to get the result I like. Sometimes I make up to five versions for the same photo!
As I said, my usual editing style is different. When I am inspired I can push my edits very far and the result would be very different from the RAW photo. My images are often very light or very dark, and I could add many unnatural effects like directional blur or add/remove elements from a photo. I like to add haze to my images as well, as is the case in the winning shot as well. The mood of the initial photo and the one I create can be very distinct. Sometimes I don’t even know if it should be called photography or rather visual creation. It doesn’t matter to me, I do what I like and that’s what counts!
I decided to edit the photo of the puffin less and keep it natural because I felt it like that. It’s always important to follow your feelings in this sense, I believe. I was lucky enough to be able to take this picture and I am very proud of it. Since that day, I always tend to leave the last when visiting different spots with other people because I want to be sure to not miss anything, especially in wildlife photography. This trip to Iceland brought me a lot of encouragement and joy and my dream is to go back as soon as possible!
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