Tag: mountains

There’s Nothing Like Film / Part 2

Hola everyone.

How are you all doing today? I hope so far you’re having a lovely Friday and that your week has been nice. Lots of good and bad stuff happening right now, huh? On the one side, there’s the world being in literal shambles, dumb politicians and us being stuck at home, on the other one there movements finally changing the world, Taylor Swift releasing a surprise album and us finding new ways to connect. When I look at the world, I often remember what I read online about a month into quarantine – if this never happened, this version of you right now would never exist. And I see that as both something good and something bad. And it makes me wonder a lot, mostly about which version I would prefer. I think it makes you reflect on life, which I think is really important.

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What a philosophical start, huh? But truly, I think taking a good look at the world is so important right now. Which is probably why I love photography so much, because it makes you look at the world, and in most cases in different ways. It makes you see the beauty in things that you never saw before. And now that I have this film camera, that I’ve been carrying around with me basically all the time, I see this beauty in the world in a way where I have the power to capture it in that very second that I’m taking a picture. Including the surprise of not really knowing how the picture will actually turn out. Which makes me feel a bit nervous and super excited at the same time. And it has kinda also made me love imperfection. You know, with a digital camera you can just perfect every shot, because you can change just about everything. But with a film camera, there’s only so much you can do besides just taking the picture. So when a picture turns out to be blurry, that’s just what it is. That’s how you captured that moment. And it might not be perfect in the way we know it, but it’s still that moment in a picture, so full of life and creativity, and that’s what I love about it.

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So last week, I finally got my second roll of film developed and I’m just so happy to share the finished pictures with you all today. I haven’t been photographing with film for that long now, but it’s already been such a learning curve. I’ve been trying out different types of film for now and I think with the roll I’m currently shooting on, I think I’ll try out different stages of light, just to see how the camera really works with that. But so far every shot has been super fun and I love seeing how the pictures turn out depending on how I’m taking them in those very moments – the pictures down below were taken at home, during a holiday, when we went hiking, at all kinds of places.

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I think compared to the first roll you can clearly see how both the type of film and me getting acclimated and more used to the camera have changed the quality of the pictures (here’s the link to my first roll of pictures). Which again is super fascinating. I’m already super excited to see how the next one’s going to turn out and I can’t wait to show the pictures to you once they’re developed. And until then I hope you enjoy the pictures down below. As always, I’d love to hear your opinions, so please don’t hesitate to leave your comments and thoughts down below. As always, I wish you all a lovely weekend and, of course, thanks for reading. x

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Let’s go for a hike

Hola everyone.

And welcome back to my blog and also, depending on when you’re reading this, another lovely start of the weekend. I hope you’ve all had a great week and that you’re doing well. I, for my part, am doing pretty good. I’ve been spending the past few days tinkering about either in the garden or the kitchen and I’ve also recently taken on doing yoga again, which is making me feel at ease, thank god. I seem unable to get this feeling of like I’m hanging in the air off of me. One second I feel great, and the next the realization of everything that happened the past few months and the longing for the summer that should’ve been hits me like a train, which always drags me back to that sad hole I was stuck in for so long. I guess that’s what all the newspapers have been saying – this whole ordeal hits and affects us, the youth, way harder than anyone would think. But I know that we as a whole are strong enough to get through this together. I will do too.

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Anyway, spending a lot of time surrounded by nature has helped me quite a lot in processing all of this, and thankfully I went on another little hike a few days ago with my parents. Actually, I visited them on their holiday for a day to wander across the mountains together, which actually wasn’t that far away from where we were on our last trip (click here), and I’m so glad I went because it was just so damn beautiful. There are only so few things that can beat the view you have when you’re up on a mountain and looking down on the world. It kinda makes you feel infinite.

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And as I knew the trip would be absolutely magnificent, I obviously took my camera with me to take a few shots, which I would like to share with you today. Basically, the whole hike consisted of lots of greenery, little to no people but even more cows. It was lovely. And I hope you think just the same about the pictures. The only bad thing that came from the whole day was that I had immensely underestimated the strength of the sun, which lead to a little surprise in the form of an intense sunburn on my shoulders that I’m still coming off of. I’ve now moved onto the shedding phase, I feel like a snake.

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Alright, and now I’m gonna stop oversharing again and let the pictures do the rest of the talking. As already mentioned, I hope you enjoy the pictures and please don’t hesitate to leave your comments and thoughts down below, I’d love to hear them. And until then I wish you all a great weekend and, as always, thanks for reading. x

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There’s Nothing Like Film

Hola everyone.

Welcome back to my blog. I’m so sorry for being gone for so long, but I’ve buried myself in uni work the past two weeks and only just now had a chance to finally peek my head out a bit again. How are you guys doing? I hope you’ve had a great two weeks and are feeling well, despite this way too real horror scenario we’re still stuck in. I’m going to be honest, I’m still locked into my shitty emotional rollercoaster. One day I’m feeling super happy and calm and truly believe that everything’s going to be perfectly fine again, and the next day I feel like a piece of my soul got ripped apart and all I want to do is throw myself off a cliff. I know, this might sound a bit dramatic, but I’ve always lived in extremes and this quarantine has only enforced that even more.

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Anyways, thanks to various new hobbies, I’ve been able to stick to the better, more fun side of the rollercoaster for most of the time. And one of those hobbies is something I’ve been wanting to get into for a pretty long time – film photography. I mean, you all know how deeply in love I am with photography in general, whether with my phone or my camera. So getting obsessed with film photography was just a natural consequence. And finally, for my birthday this year, I gave myself the greatest gift ever to give in to the obsession – a film camera, to be exact, an Olympus XA2, that I got from Depop.

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So far, I’ve used up one roll of film, which I recently got developed and am super happy to share with you today. Obviously, not all the pictures are worthy enough to be hung up on a wall for everyone to see, but some of them are and to be honest, I’m really proud of that. Especially for my first try. Thankfully, actually photographing with the camera is just as much fun as seeing the results. I know that some people don’t like film, because opposed to digital cameras, you aren’t able to see the photo straight after taking it. You can’t check whether the lighting is nice or everything is in focus. Every single picture is a surprise. And yes, it might make it all a bit more stressful, because the chance of some of the pics being throwaways is pretty high, but it is also way more exciting that way. I love how you capture moments and then they’re locked into the camera until you finally get to see them weeks afterward. I think that’s actually what gives the pictures their certain nostalgic and romantic touch. I really really really love it. And so, without further ado, here are some of my favourite pictures that I took during the past weeks while being stuck in quarantine. If any of you are curious, I took all of them on a Kodak Gold film with an ISO of 200. I hope you like them just as much as I do. So, please enjoy.

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And there you go guys, this is it for today’s post. I hope you enjoyed the pictures and are excited for more to come. I’ve already ordered six more rolls of film – 3x Kodak Color Plus 200 and 3x Fujicolor C200 – and I can’t wait to shoot them all and fill them with fantastic memories and beautiful moments. And then to share them with all of you. And until then, I hope you like these here. As always, please don’t hesitate to leave your thoughts and comments down below. And also recommendations and tips for the camera. I’m just at the start of the film photography learning curve and would be grateful for every tip. Besides that, I wish you all a lovely week and hope you’re doing well. And, of course, thanks for reading. x

Let’s go on a hike

Hola everyone.

How are you all doing? I hope so far your Monday has been fantastic and that you had a great weekend. I for my part am doing amazing, especially now that the weather has been so nice the past days. I can’t really tell why, but it feels like summer just started a few days ago, although I’ve been at home for over a month now. But I don’t mind, not at all.

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For today’s post, as I thought it’s Monday and we’re all probably in a chill mood, I’d start this week off with a nice, easy post about the hike I went on with my parents and Molly a few weeks ago, which was so so so nice. You guys know that I’m from the countryside, which is why I’ve always been drawn to the city. Big clouds of people. Busy streets. High buildings, scraping the sky. And new chances and adventures waiting around every corner. At last, that’s kind of also why I want to move to London. Not just because I love the city itself, but also because it’s a really cool city. It’s busy and crazy and beautiful.

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But even though I may be a “country-girl-gone-city-girl”, I can’t help but completely fall in love with the countryside and the mountains and long hikes and clear skies when I go on trips like this one. And this hike specifically was an absolute dream come true that made me daydream about a life on the countryside, far off any real civilisation, where the only sounds you can hear are the bees buzzing and the cows walking around with their bells. I mean, that’s what I call peaceful. Obviously, I would go crazy after about a week, because I would simply be bored out of my mind, but that’s again just another reason why I love hiking trips like this one. They make me appreciate my country and where I come from. They make me love my home.

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Thus, I’m so happy that I get to share these pictures I took during the hike with you. As always, I hope you enjoy them just as much as I do and please don’t hesitate to leave your thoughts and comments down below. And, of course, I wish you all a lovely week and thanks for reading. x

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A walk in the wild

Hola everyone.

And welcome to another week. It’s Monday and this time I’m back again with some nice black and white photography. But this time with a bit of a more positive meaning behind them. Actually, the pictures I’m about to show you are a bit “old”, I’d say. I took them on a hike I went on together with my mum and Molly, my dog, just before moving to Brighton. But today I can finally show them to you.

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Honestly, when it comes to nature, I can be quite a complex individual. Because I absolutely love living in the city, where everything you need is just around the corner and everyone’s busy and buzzing. I really do love it. But on the other hand I completely adore the nature and being in the wild, especially the woods. This also why I need to go for a walk at least once a day. It’s my way of calming myself down and logging off for some time. It’s bit therapeutic, you could say. So when my mum came up to me and told me about her idea of going on a hike together, I was head over heels in love with it.

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And the pictures are kind of the result of that very day. As it sometimes happens, I wasn’t quite in the mood for colored pictures, so I stuck to black and white and personally, I think they came out just perfect. I love how they have both cheerful and creepy vibes to them. And oh my god, those pictures of Molly. Can you believe that there’s actually a dog out there in the world that is that cute? Because I can’t. I think the one picture of her with the flower next to her is one of the cutest pictures I have ever taken. Look at her smile. I now have it framed on the beside table next to me and I get heart-eyes every time I look at it. What a cutie.

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The only thing you can’t see through the pictures is the actual exhaustion. Because when we got there, we planned on walking for about 17 kilometers I think. Well. Those turned out to be 22 in the end, which, yeah, was a bit much. But hey, we survived and in the end it was one of the best days in my life. It was so nice to spend some time alone with my mum and Molly. So yeah, I loved every single second of it and I couldn’t be happier that I now finally get to share some of those special moments with you. I hope you enjoy them.

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As always, please don’t hesitate to leave your comments down below. And yeah, I wish you all an amazing week and hope you’re doing well. And, of course, thanks for reading. x

Black Mountains, White Skies

Hola everyone.

Can you believe it’s already Monday again? Because I can’t. It’s seriously more than crazy how the time is just zooming by. Just wait. I’ll blink once and then it will be September and I’ll be on my flight to Brighton. Holy moly. But let’s not freak out just yet and focus on the here and now, shall we? So, how are you guys? I hope you’re all having a great start of the week. And I hope what’s coming next maybe makes it even better.

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So, a few weeks ago my parents and I drove to Salzburg for my cousins wedding. First I have to say that the wedding was so damn beautiful that it’s hard for me to find any words. But what gave the whole ceremony that one special cherry on top was the location. We celebrated in the middle of a valley, surrounded by the phenomenal mountains and the breathtaking nature. I loved it so so so much. And as I of course had taken my camera with me, I took my chance and went hiking for a bit to take some pictures. And oh wow, was that cool. I tried to really capture the vibes that I got, the slightly icy, cool feeling I had and the imposing greatness of the mountains. And I actually wanted to try something different to my otherwise very colorful, vibrant style. So yeah, without further ado, I present you my selection of the best pics I took during the wedding-weekend. What I probably like the most about them is that the actual intensity of the surrounding mountains can be seen on the pics, especially with the ones where both my parents and Molly are walking at the bottom of the photos with the big mountains right behind them. Like, honestly, I really like the pics. And I even more hope that you do too.  As always, please don’t hesitate to leave your thoughts down below and I wish you a great week. And, of course, thanks for reading. x

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