Winter Sketches – part IV

Last Updated on August 1, 2016 by Patrick

Spring has come, finally. :) But this is not what’s all about in this article. Winter Sketches Photography Project continues for there still is snow in the mountains.

There are moments in the practice of photography when it is necessary to be opened to absolutely everything that is going on. The great photographic artists of all times spoke about the “decisive moment” but also about the fact of looking behind you after you’ve found what to photograph. In some way, this is what happened to me on the 19th of April, 2015.

It was a day of April, in the end, when we traveled to the Baiului Mountains in our country to “hunt” some wild daffodils. :D There’s a meadow there where wild daffodils grow in this time of the year and it is protected by the law, turned into a nature reserve. Unfortunately, we didn’t find them and the trail was surprisingly difficult climbing the Evil Valley to the cliffs, on the scree where the springs that feed this valley are passing. The earth was moist and, getting close to it to climb the steep valley, I sensed its mold flavor. I was surprised again and I was asking myself why. Obviously that the plants that grow there and which died last fall are now passing through a process of decaying, and from their products new generations will grow again and the cycle will continue.

What I have also noticed was that that scree was made largely of sedimentary calcareous sandstone (which is why it was lightly colored, some sort of grey with subtle whitish lines). Largely, Baiului Mountains are made of sandstone, I feel. This kind of rock can be also found in the south, in the Hillocks of Secãria and in the subcarpathian curvature hills of Sinoiul, Dogwood Plains and in the region of Raven’s Bridge. But in these regions the rock is softer, lighter colored and mixed with red clay here and there. It is interesting that this makes Baiului Mountains look quite desert like on the crests and ridges, which is why, during winter snowfalls they look like a vast desert region where the wind blows hard scattering the snow like the sand of the desert.

This scree collapsing on the Evil Valley made this be more lowered than the peaks, like a cove. But this happened due to the flowing of the springs from both the feet of the valley (Thrift’s Foot and Dog’s Foot) that join into a single creek which then joins The Prahova River, as a tributary, near Sinaia. This is why, after the marching up the trail, after it ends, very quickly the level curve becomes accentuated and more steep towards the peaks, and the ascension also very steep.

I was mislead, I feel, because I searched the internet about this trail and I found that it was said that anyone can do it. Actually, I discovered that it is not like that at all. Or maybe we didn’t get on the right trail in the end. Who knows? I will search for more details on this.

Once we reached the ridges by the skin of our teeth, so to speak, we decided to take on another route to return to our cars, on the southeastern foot of Evil Valley, on Dog’s Peak. It was a trail back throught the woods milder than the scree trail of the Evil Valley on which we climbed. We needed this.

We continued our journey and the very cold winds blew on us on the ridges with tens of miles per hour. But we all resisted stoically.

At some point, on the way to Drãgan Peak, I decided to stop a little to rest. My feet ached terribly from the effort climbing the scree. I was asking myself “what am I going to do? Will I return with no photograph, again?!”. :) And then I felt the need to look behind to admire the landscapes. I was profoundly amazed by the beauty of the vista. I saw the Thrift’s Peak and Baiul Mare, the tallest (1908 meters high), left behind us. What textures! What accents the patches of snow on the mountains had! Mother Nature is a consummate painter. :)

I did like Ansel Adams. I had a vision of that landscape. I noticed the slow play of lights and shadows given by the sun preparing to enter the decline of setting and the consistent clouds floating above the peaks and I imagined how I should portray that landscape. But, how paradoxical: a portrayed landscape! :)

Immediately I thought about monochrome photography and the leading lines I admired attracting me in a special way. That is why I say that Mother Nature is a consummate painter. ;)

I don’t know what came to me to look behind, a need I cannot explain to myself because it was an instinctive need, I’d say. It’s not the first time this happens to me. It’s like God turning my head around towards what I need to see.

And then I couldn’t contain myself at all. Actually I needn’t have tried to. I took down my backpack to get out my photo gear. I noticed that I had attached my telephoto lens to the camera. I thought, before this, about my wideangle lens, but… What should I do, change it? – I said to myself. But the wind was blowing like home mercilessly. If I’d change it, I would have risked to fill the sensor with lots of dust.

Then, I excluded the idea of using the tripod because of the wind and I wanted, at all costs, to get something.

These being the parameters of the problem I decided to make a panorama knowing that I couldn’t capture what I saw and wanted to in a single frame, due to the narrow angle of coverage of the long lens, and then I decided to use the shortest focal range of it to capture as much as I could and needed for the final frame. I had no time at all to “work the shot” to get the “final result” I needed because I knew that the trail back was going to be a long one. We hiked on the peaks a lot and due to the fact that we were exhausted from the climb on the scree.

And so I decided to move fast. I shot five frames which had to include what I wanted, from left to right, overlapping a part of the next frame over the previous, for a seamless blending in post-processing, than, without any aberations or photographical anomalies whatsoever. Luckily I had activated my autofocus otherwise I would have returned with nothing. :) I didn’t have time to manually focus much. Already, the rest of my group was very advanced on the trail.

But God helped me and I got the sharpness I wanted. I was continuously asking myself on the path “do the frames I shot look sharp enough?”. I was about to find out at home. And indeed they were very sharp. That made me very happy! :D

In photography, some say that there is no photographer who goes on the field, to the chosen place, to the chosen subject, shoots a frame and that’s it, he or she “got the shot”. But there still are cases like these and this is the case of the “decisive moment”, so to speak, even in landscape and nature photography. One just has to be opened to the new and respond to the calling. And then one will get what needs to get and not what one wants to get.

Often, in our blindness, being ignorant to what is out there, where we are going to, we believe that we need a specific photograph which charactarizes, say, that place, maybe even the season, the climate there, the geology and the geographical aspects of the landscapes there, the fauna and flora and so on. But it turned out that, leaving with the thought that maybe I will find wild daffodils to photograph, it wasn’t meant to be then. We must let ourselves be guided and learn to read the landscape, read nature and everything surrounding us with openness of heart and mind to what is. Most often, what we think does not coincide with what is there in reality. We think one thing, but the reality is another.

Nature shows us what we must receive. And why it must? Because we feel the need to.

I felt the need for a break, to go out and confrunt that trail I tried twice by now but I didn’t finish it. Then I hiked on a longer trail going back through the Dog’s Peak. I felt the need to see and what I saw was which was supossed to. Things bind perfectly.

There were great challenges on the path and this, although tired us a lot, strenghtened us quite good, I would say, even if within us maybe we protested. I, myself, tried not to object though I feared that maybe it was to much for the ones I was with. We risked a lot and I didn’t want to endanger them. But reality doesn’t coincide once more with our plans. A Dominican monk once said that “if you wanna make God laugh, tell Him about your plans!”. :D

Getting out of the comfort zone is a must, a necessity!

Here’s what I saw and felt. Farewell! :)