Do you wait for sunny weather, clear skies? I’m waiting for a storm. Lately I’ve been fascinated with stormy skies. There is some wild unruly power in them, something that makes me appreciate the Nature and its rejection of a human will over it.
Rialto Beach, Olympic National Park
This photo was taken on a rainy, cold and windy day when most people stayed home warming up by a fireplace. Not me. I was out there, trying to capture a beauty of elements.
On one of my trips to the ocean shores of Olympic peninsula at Ruby beach I met an old man who was photographing too. He was very energetic and open. We started talking.
It turned out that he was a professional photographer for many year. His story was both bitter and inspiring. As a professional photographer he spent most of the time photographing things he was not interested in. He did not even mention over our whole conversation what it was.
It was a year since he retired and he finally could start photographing for himself, the things he loved the most – landscapes. He was already on a year long journey, traveling from place to place, capturing the beauty of the Nature. He was finally happy. He drew his energy from the times he was young amateur photographer, open to what the world presented to him.
While I have never been a professional photographer I think I understand him. Just probably as with any other profession once money gets into a picture we start making compromises, that may lead us to completely forgetting why we started doing what we liked in the first place. With my photography I’d prefer photographing what I like and be happy in the process. That’s the place I want to be true to myself.
vitali prokopenko | fine art 