''We're so engaged in doing things to achieve purposes of outer value that we forget the inner value, the rapture that is associated with being alive, is what it is all about.''
~ Joseph Campbell
I am living every day, but not always do I get to feel the emotions that ground me entirely, bring me into the present moment and make me feel truly alive. My first morning in Poland was one of those rare ones that allow me to feel that way, and what a truly incredible welcome it was. As far as a morning of landscape photography goes it doesn’t often get too much better.
The previous night, I had touched down in Krakow airport late into the evening. My friend Alek, with whom I had a lot to catch up with since he left Welshpool to move back to Poland a few years ago, had kindly picked me up. After exchanging some greetings and stories, we went together to meet his sister, Kaja; our mountain guide and, at times, motivator for the two days, at the train station.
Alek and Kaja near the summit of Wołowiec in the Tatra Mountains.
It was already so cold outside in the city when I arrived. We all sat in comfort together in the warm car laughing and joking, and in the back of my mind, I couldn’t help but wonder what conditions might be awaiting us on higher ground the following morning. I’d heard some rumours of snow on the mountaintops, and that is enough to excite any landscape photographer. I closed my eyes for a moment and allowed myself to dream as we whizzed past the bright lights of the city and out onto the open country roads.
We stopped for what was meant to be a quick bite to eat. Friends and family back home in Wales had sent me text messages saying that they could hear my belly rumbling from all the way back there after my long flight. Our ‘quick stop’ turned into a feast of burgers, fries and fried chicken. It’s not often that I treat myself to some unhealthy fast food but I was on a much needed break from my ‘normal’ life… And we had some huge mountains to climb!
We made it to our destination, a small town about an hour away from the Tatra Mountains late into the night and finally put our heads down at around 12.30am. Just a blink of the eyes later, me, Alek and his wife; Martyna woke at 3am, drank a quick coffee, wiped the collective sleep away from our eyes, and travelled to pick Kaja up just a few miles away before setting out excitedly on our journey into the thick fog.
An hour later, we arrived at our location. We quickly parked up, switched off the cars’ engine, and stepped outside into fog in the coldness of night. We equipped ourselves with headtorches, laced up our boots and made tracks into the deep, dark and mysterious forest. The Dunajec river was our companion for the first kilometre of our journey. We walked hastily beside her, and I couldn’t help but feel hypnotised by her whispers which called us forth towards her source on higher ground.
Following the whispers of the Dunajec, we climbed. Little did I know what was awaiting me at the summit of this 800m mountain; freezing conditions which woke me up and heightened my senses even further, icy rocks making each step more careful than the last and a sea of thick fog, hiding everything in sight, restricting my vision to a maximum of five metres in all directions.
It was only when the fog broke for a few seconds that I got a glimpse of a snow capped section of a magical mountain range in the distance, sandwiched between the fog and the clouds. ‘The Tatras!’ I exclaimed with joy. I’d heard so much about them in the build up to this trip and was very excited to see them. To add the cherry on top, there was snow on the peaks.
The scene was perfect. I stood there trying to pull my jaw from the icy floor. I was completely unprepared and my camera and lenses were still packed away tightly inside of my rucksack. The fog closed like a stage curtain and I missed a truly glorious photo opportunity.
Luckily for me, half an hour or so later while the light was still at its softest and most evocative, the fog began to dissipate, providing me with one of the best views I have had in my thirty one years on this planet. I opened the shutter to capture this magnificent moment, and then I stood again in awe for a while, admiring the craftsmanship of Mother Nature.
The Tatra mountain range above a sea of fog.
There is something that I have always found quite charming about a distant range of snow-capped mountains. These are the kinds of scenes that I could never get tired of. I spent much of my childhood escaping into films and books. When I step foot into a place like this one, it’s like I have teleported straight into the imagination of Tolkien, and climbed The Lonely Mountain in The Lord of the Rings.
When I am standing on a hilltop admiring such beautiful scenery at the breaking of dawn, I always spare a thought for where I started out in life. These blissful moments help to remind me of why I am out in the landscape creating photographs and telling stories.
A few years ago, I acquired a mission here on earth. I began to live my life in the hope of inspiring others to explore this world and find new parts of themselves along the way. It is my ambition to show people that time in nature can provide much needed healing, give them the space that they need for reflection, and perhaps help them to find their own sense of belonging and unique purpose on this planet.
“Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.”
~ John Muir
My friend and mountain guide for the trip; Kaja with a backdrop of the Tatra Mountains.
Sun rising through the low fog in the Polish mountains.
You didn’t think that I was going to go all the way to Poland on a landscape photography adventure and not make the trip about trees in some way, did you?
I was lucky enough to have been guided by a friend who is as familiar with this area as I am with Snowdonia. She led me to this summit and en route, told me that there is a tree that bows to the Tatra mountains out of respect for them. It is something that I am going to do myself whenever I find myself among the mountains in the future. I owe them a great deal for what they have provided me over the past few years and I’ll remain eternally grateful that they have remained ever welcoming.
A lonely tree overhangs a clifftop in the Polish mountains.
It was during a hike on the following day that I regained my love for mountain adventures after nearly two years of photographing trees, lakes and rivers down in the valleys. After climbing 2,137m to the summit of one of the mountains, I decided to follow the example set by this tree and make my own bow.
A lonely tree overhangs a clifftop in the Polish mountains.
In a book that I recently read by Diana Beresford-Krueger called ‘To Speak for the Trees’, she writes eloquently about a study that she conducted earlier in her career during which she found similar chemicals within trees to those that us humans possess in our own brains. She writes that her study proved that trees have their own thought processes and perhaps even that they know how to dream, too.
I think that this one wakes up in a dream every day, don’t you?
A lonely tree overhangs a clifftop in the Polish mountains.
Autumn is a special time of year for many reasons. One of them is for these kinds of transitions in colour that you can see when first light meets with fog or frost, like in the following photograph.
To create this kind of effect in my photographs, I usually like to shoot directly into the sunlight, or across it slightly. In this instance, I was a few hundred metres above the copse of trees that over hang the valley, shooting down onto them, and towards the sunlight with a long lens.
The light was coming and going and the fog, also known as ‘the milk’ by my new friend, Kaja, was swirling around, thickening and thinning with every moment that passed, concealing and then revealing the trees. These kinds of mornings are the best for landscape photography and always some of my most memorable.
As I said in a photography talk at The Bookshop by The Sea in Aberystwyth recently; I find that I’m at my most present during these moments; tuned in to every little change that is occurring out there in the landscape, with nothing else in my mind apart from, ‘what is going to happen next.’ I guess that we are all chasing our own highs, and moments like this are mine.
Kaja climbing the steep steps towards the summit of Wołowiec in the Tatra Mountains.
At 2,100m up in the Tatra mountains, my friend Alek poses for a picture.
I spent four days in Poland; the first was dedicated to nature and landscape photography; the second mainly to hiking and simply taking in the sights of glorious Tatra Mountains when immersed among them at 2,100m. The third and fourth days were spent in Krakow itself, mainly walking around, practicing some street photography, doing my share of touristing and eating my bodyweight in Polish delicacies… *Ahem. Donuts. Ahem*.
I am planning to visit again in 2023 where I will be looking to spend more time hiking in the incredible Tatra Mountain range, which boasts some impressive peaks and layers upon layers of mountains that stretch as far as the eye can see. Next time, I will make sure that we get to the summit for sunrise. If you are ever looking for an alternative to Iceland, Norway or the Dolomites etc for a photography trip, then I can recommend a visit to this wonderful country.