A First Time For Everything
One of the first things my teacher told me in uni about photography was, "One of the best ways of taking incredible photos, is to go to incredible places."
So when I first moved to England, I though that in some few months I would have travelled all over, visited all the places worth being seen. You see, I'm from a continent sized country that fits the whole of Europe excluding Russia, so knowing that England is on a tiny island, knowing that with the time that, back in Rio, would take me to drive from one side of the city to the other I could drive half way across the country, I really thought that going to incredible places would be a daily event.
Well, I did not expect to, 5 years later, have gone no farther than London and one single trip to Newport (and I didn't even take my camera to that one). I failed to realise that, unfortunately, real life got in the way of my ideas and the travelling around became a distant wish.
So this last year, I realised that not only I didn't travel around much, I also knew nothing about my local area. Bournemouth and all the towns around it are incredible and I hadn't visited not even half of the incredible places around. I though that it was time to change that, and I started going to different places and taking my camera with me. Things got easier when my wife and I finally bought a car in the middle of the year and I made some pretty amazing friends who showed me loads of great locations, like Seacombe along the Jurassic coast.
Another great place I got to see this last year was the Agglestone Rock in Studland. I did go to Studland before but never walked along the commons so, I ventured there on my own, got lost a couple of times, had my feet covered in mud and might or might not have fallen on a slippery rock but I got a majestic sunset over there.
The journey back was a bit creepy as the sun had gone down and there's not really a lot of light in the middle of the heathland but, all for the adventure, right?
I couldn't leave out of this list my first visit to Portland, that happened on the last week of 2017. The place is as beautiful as I thought it would be and the big lighthouse is indeed iconic. I walked across the cliffs and saw the famous red crane and pulpit rock, and even got lucky enough to spot a seal in the sea. I really can't wait to go back there to see more landmarks.
Definitely, 2017 took me to a whole bunch of new places and I'm really happy about it because I'm finally getting to see all the incredible landscape I know this country has to offer. And the new year has the potential to take me to even more places as I'm soon finishing my driving license.
As much as photography reinvents itself even when you are often at the same location, there is not many things that work as fuel for the brain, for the creativity juices inside me, than seeing new stuff. The world is too big for me to stay in just one spot. It inspires me to see how immense our planet is and how indescribable beauty is right at my doorstep. What about you? What inspires you? ;)
#portland #studland #dorset #jurassiccoast #landscape #landscapephotography #sunrise #sunset #naturephotography
