New project – In a land far, far away…

I am launching a new photographic project called “In a land far, far away…“. Here I would like to write a little bit about its content and what led me to it.

This project reveals the roots of my love for landscape photography. It was preceded by a love of fairy tales and fantasy genre, most notably The Lord of the Rings. Only recently have I fully realized how much of an influence it had on my desire to be outdoors and photograph landscapes. From the beginning I was looking for that fairytale setting, where I could easily imagine all sorts of fantastical creatures, marching armies of knights, outlandish castles, etc. Gradually, I became more and more absorbed in nature itself and found a deeper relationship to it through photography, but in the beginning I was really mainly inspired by fantasy and also medieval legends and stories.

I had already delved into the fantasy genre with photography with Project Rover, which is now in hibernation, waiting for the muse to kiss me and for me to make time for it:-). In the project “In a land far, far away…” I dust off older photos and try to reveal the landscape as a world full of stories. Who knows, maybe once upon a time similar scenes really took place there, or in some hidden level still do. I want to convey to you what I have been looking for in the landscape since the very beginning. And you know what? I find it there too.

Mostly it will be my older photos that I have re-processed. The goal is not to make fairy tale elements (typically it will always be about dragons and castles in various locations) the dominant subject of the scene – the basis and the main element of the photo is and will always be the landscape itself, which carries that fairy tale quality itself. I will only slightly spice it up and with rather small details I will help to evoke that fairytale impression and spark your imagination.

I decided not to use AI for this, as it seems too easy and cheap. Instead, I collect available images from stock photo galleries and with honest handwork I montage them into my photos. You might only find AI intervention in de-noising and sharpening, which I use routinely in my landscape photos as well.

So I invite you to take a peek into the fairy tale world we are surrounded by, which is normally hidden from our eyes.