Winter Sketches – part III

Last Updated on August 1, 2016 by Patrick

Winter photography seems to enjoy a special treatment from photographers, both passionate amateurs and professionals, all over the world. First of all, when we say winter photography we say, like, nature photography, although it is not necessarily like that.

In this episode of winter sketches I go further into studying monochrome photography with special characteristics. The plays of light, shadows, leading lines, shapes, layers, levels and their juxtaposition etc., they all combine harmoniously for transmiting the messages.

It was a regular winter day, a bit warm, though (temperatures of around 4 degrees Celsius), somewhere in the Baiului Mountains, in my country, Romania, and the snow was quite consistent. This time, there was no blizzard and the wind was blowing from time to time. The sky was partly cloudy and the clouds were moving quickly here and there.

The Sun was shining bright, then hid behind the clouds, then shone again… Looking down on the snow I saw rough contours made by strong wind erosions during the winter season. Thin, lamellar, subtle layers intertwined with one another on a bed of snow.

When the Sun shone, these contours got immaculated iridescences revealing their subtle asperities in the eyes of the seeker. Their light headed towards pure white, unreaching it, though.

It was a snow desert that was revealed in front of the astonished of the miniature beauty of Nature like a protective wall for the future generations of the children of the mountain, with its rough scars, brightly lit by the Sun. These drew my attention in a special way and I was amazed, and told myself: “there is a photograph”.

Afterwards, scanning the horizon I noticed certain interesting plays of the light of the Sun on the tops. I changed my lense with the telephoto one and began to look for a new winter sketch, a new guidance towards the forms from the nothingness of the imagination.

I was looking for a certain kind of story, something more than just the simple representation of a mere winter landscape. Then the Sun was shinning brightly again, from the clouds, and I noticed the distant show of light. The landscape, then, truly became a special one. Contours, contrasts, a wide range of lights and shadows were, like, playing a drama of the old winter endured on the tops, on the mountain pastures. In winter everything seems to be reduced to shades of gray, from white to black.

I rememberd Michael Kenna’s style. I was looking for the subtleties of the landscapes there, some particularities. I was obviously drawn by the wide range of contrasts, from the best defined to the least suggested. I was looking for a story, as I said, a special winter show on the mountains. And suddenly the light was playing a beautiful fandango shrouding itself from time to time with the fugitive clouds.

My eyes often headed towards Bucegi Mountains. There was a show of lights, shadows, clouds and snowy ridges coming and at a certain moment it began.

I was looking for the perfect detail, though. I insisted in finding it in a wider vision of the landscape. The differences between lights, shadows, the steep crevices of the Jeps, of the Millman’s Fangs and of other ridges strongly contoured by the eonic forces of long ago, were inscribed in a landscape taken from a Japanese Dojo or from a Chinese Pagoda, where paintings in pen and ink reduce all the visions to the simple impression of the traces of the ink. :)

I went farther from it a little and I searched for something wider to express the spectacle of Bucegi Mountains from the opposite side. And then something amazing happened, an opening of light, a high altitude breeze that opened the curtain of clouds to draw the attention of the beholder of beauty in one’s eyes.

I remembered I avoided these mountains for a long time, I didn’t explore them much, in fact, and it is time I study them more. Their plateau-like form, similar to a stronghold in the heart of Romania is special. It looks, though, like a horseshoe seen from above.

“One day I will explore you more!” – I said to myself. And I remember, also, its natural, atmospheric  eccentricities. It produces some storms that are very difficult to predict, and in addition to this, its energetic fields contained within the massif’s mountains charge the air there with a special kind of electricity. It only needs its own spotlights, because the scene and the props are already put in place. :)

If Nikola Tesla would have been alive today, he would have built his lab on this mountain. :D It is a one of a kind mountain range, very special.. what else can I say?!

A light portal opened up there. I was asking myself “how do the people who are up there, on the tops of Bucegi, either skiing or hiking, feel in those moments?”. The light began to penetrate the dense snowstorm cloudy atmosphere. Little by little it gained ground and the clouds spread giving space to a clear blue sky afterwards.

Light is needed, but a special kind of light. A special “ink” also is needed to portray this, special contrasts, although balanced because strong, extreme contrasts tell the story too loudly and in addition, they sacrifice the finesse of the composition, its graphical elements that emphasize the message. It is not necessary.. more diplomacy is needed because there is a lot of power.

From simple sketches, to the more complex ones, that in fact morph into the definitive drawing of the landscapes. We begin simply, with simple forms, simple contrasts and we finish with the finest details, with the grandeur of its mountainous majesty in a special atmosphere, eccentric though, undeniably luminated by the winter Sun, lowered to the horizon. The result is: intangible, though delicat, eternally incomparable, unique in its aspect. This is the moment and it cannot be anything else but the present moment.

Till we meet next time, cheers! ;)