Episode 4 of my irregular photo journal - Fresh air, clear mind
I’m a sucker for moody monochrome images of trees and forests. And I’m also a sucker for spending time in nature all by myself. Well, this week I finally had some much needed time off work so I decided to grab my backpack, set up my car for a cosy winter sleep and drove out of Prague. My destination was a small national park called Bohemian Switzerland up in the northwestern corner of the country. It was already dark when I got there so I just decided to have a nice dinner, read a movie, see a book and call it a night. I cooked something simple using my butane/propane tank, got comfy and decided to go to sleep. It would’ve been a perfect night if I wasn’t starting to get a strange headache for no apparent reason. Turns out the cooker tank was leaking gas and slowly but surely filling up the car. You wouldn’t be reading this blog post if I hadn’t noticed in time I presume. Disaster avoided, time to relax.
The next day (that was actually today) I woke up pretty early. It was super cold which is what might’ve helped with waking up. I decided to take it easy. It is a holiday after all. So I just spent the morning drawing some trees I could see around me. Drawing was a passion of mine for years back in high school. It was the main reason I chose that school in the first place. Not for the porcelain making or the graphic design. It was the drawing classes that drew me in. Another journal entry, another pun not intended… But I haven’t really drawn anything since I graduated if you leave out the digital drawings on my phone and iPad. It felt good to be doing it again. There’s a lot I need to re-learn and learn. It has been over ten years since my last “artistic” endeavours. But in the end, I’m pretty happy with the result of my first sketch in ten years.
After around two hours spent just relaxing, I got dressed, packed up my camera crap and went up towards the hills. The temperature was in the negative numbers. It was pretty damn cold but the air was so clean. It was like getting a new pair of lungs. The moody misty weather, the clean air, the brisk weather and the beautiful quiet was like a balm for my mind. I spent hours just walking, taking the scenery in and occasionally snapping a picture.
The forest felt depressing at times, lonely and abandoned. The people caring for the park put up signs saying that there’s an increased risk of falling trees, but the reality was very different. I passed entire sections of the forest where there were no trees standing upright at all. They were all laying down almost perfectly horizontally. Like a tornado has ripped through here and broke every trunk it saw. It didn’t really matter to me though. My head was empty for the first time in months and it felt wonderful. No work thoughts, no YouTube videos, no music playing, no traffic, nothing. Damn, I needed this. As I’m writing this post I’m already thinking of most likely going to do another one of these again sometime this week if the baby allows it.
As you can see in the images below the atmosphere was absolutely perfect for my contrasty moody monochrome forest images. I haven’t taken a lot as I was mostly just enjoying the peace and quiet, but the ones down here are a quick selection of my keepers. I’m not used to shooting images that don’t have people in them but that doesn’t mean I won’t at least try. Let me know what you think and what are your happy quiet places. Plus, if you know Czech landscapes, tell me which one to visit next. It’s a shame I don’t really know the country that well having spent most of my adult life outside of it.
