On The Hill Of Childhood

Lately I take my camera out of the house less and less. That's compared to the not too distant past when it wasn't a camera-free outing. Now there are only a few activities that are associated with photography that I try to do better.

Trips, walks, street shows, I try to document them with the good camera, that the way I call the camera, at the expense of the smartphone.

This year was generous with trips, five to the seaside and two to the childhood village. I have a lot of photos and that's why my posts are mostly about these places I traveled to.

Bearing in mind that all five trips to the sea were in the same city, and the two trips to the childhood village are obviously in the same place, it follows that, in fact, we only had two trips divided into several episodes!

In the village in the north of Romania, where I grew up and had a wonderful childhood, with some material deprivation but with a lot of freedom, my favorite place that I visit every time is the Hill or the Valley.

These two are together, of course, but we used to call them separately. We would either go "up the hill" or to the Glimeii Valley.

It was a mystery to me why the hill didn't have a name, while the valley did, or maybe the hill's name was just Hill, like some people have a dog named Dog!

The hill is a stone's throw from my childhood home, which is now the childhood home of my brother's children. No more than a quarter of an hour and we're "up the hill". The whole family participates like a procession in these hikes/rides when my wife and I get there....

These group walks are a great opportunity for me to take photos of people without them getting upset, especially since they were taking pictures of each other with their phones.

"Selfie and not just that!"

A walk up the hill can take a while; the hill is pretty big, so we need to choose a goal right from the start.

Our goal was to reach the top of the hill, a mound that seems artificial to me; it could even be a Neolithic burial site, and I'm surprised no one seems interested in doing any excavations there.

This short walk always has a powerful effect on me, bringing back strong memories and heavy nostalgia. I've walked through there hundreds of times with my childhood friends. Back in the 60s, the village was full of kids; in any playgroup, there were always more than ten of us. Now, I think there are ten times fewer, and they spend more time indoors. The advantage of my childhood was that there was no TV, internet, or smartphone. Many of us didn’t even have electricity!

Nostalgia is now replaced by a great feeling of freedom, the freedom to look far ahead, all the way to the horizon. A forbidden joy for me in the big city where I live.

The green grass of home!

Two days ago, I wrote about this place from my childhood and used the same photos as here... just in black and white. I tried to convey nostalgia and the distance from those childhood days through the image. The post is HERE if you want to see the difference between black and white, and color, and even though the story is the same, it’s told differently!

_{I rely mostly on photos in all my blogs. Words don't help me as much as photos.}

_{I always start with photos when I want to write a blog. Photos remind me of places, events, and feelings that then turn into words. When I post in Photography Lovers the words have even less importance, they are a companion to the photos I want to show. This often makes the story uninteresting or common, yet it is necessary; otherwise, the photos would merely be a series of unexciting images.}

_{I make this statement as a plea to those reading not to over-judge the text and to focus on the photos. The story puts everything in context and provides the explanations and clarifications necessary for the blog to convey something of interest to the reader.}

_{Since we all love photography, let’s explore the captivating details captured in these photos.!}

_{A wise saying goes that a photograph is worth a thousand words, but I don't think so.}

_{It depends on the viewer.}