Cinematic compositions, storytelling, and life

Following up on the photographs I posted yesterday on the mountainous region I visited, I mentioned a few things I wanted to explore a bit more in the writing side of things. Some of these pictures are by far my most favourite that I have ever taken for their composition and atmosphere. Not just due to the fact that I found myself surrounded by such beautiful, old buildings and snow. But the photography potential of being in a natural environment of which I have never really seen before. It felt as if every turn I took, there was something new I wanted to capture in great detail. That there was something cinematic just waiting for me to point the camera at it. Take the first image for example: the car with its exhaust fumes spilling out into the road, the forward bending of that road in the horizon, the mountains seemingly opening up for them to pass through. The start of that travel, and the narrative that follows with such a strong introduction. I knew immediately as I saw the car turning to leave I had to capture it, I just couldn't help myself. It spanned beyond just an interest in photography and seeing the cinematic side of things, the storyteller that comes with noticing the small things.

Even up in one of the caves, I found myself looking through a small gap in the wall which overlooked the opposite mountain. That small window that would have once been used by someone, I wondered what they would have thought of this environment. What they must have thought as they looked out into such beauty, even in the daytime and night. The ideas they had, the lives they lived. I wanted to try to capture that by shooting through the 'window', to try to invoke some of that idea myself. I knew one thing already: to walk up those ice-covered steps in the peak of winter wasn't easy. To feel the rocks crumbling beneath your feet to climb up to each cave was one that I couldn't imagine doing in the dead of night. I already had the question on how I would get back down starting to roam my mind. The disappearance of the surroundings below, and the steepness of each step that required using all four limbs. Even today I feel that burning in the muscles of my legs. I should've stretched beforehand. Do you think those inhabitants of the caves also felt this? Probably not.

It's fun to think of how life has changed, the simplicity and complexity of life for those before us. I wonder how different it really was. I think the fun of photography encourages such thoughts. To look through the lens and start to think of all the possibilities in that environment; to go beyond the limitations of what's there in the present and to use emotion to convey it that extra step deeper. It helps that environments shift, impacted by the changes of light as the time passes. As the tones turn. As people come and go from those spaces and the atmosphere becomes another, new feeling entirely.

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