Have you ever been frustrated and disappointed on your vacation? This is how I felt for a few days when we arrived to Olkhon this Saturday. The structures of the frozen lake are now covered by snow and there has been very little clouds until now. The warm and windless weather (around zero degrees at noon) transformed a wild and rough beast into a calm and gentle princess, ideal destination for traveling parents with their toddlers.
I guess it would be too harsh to say the place has become uninspiring as its vastness certainly remains, but it does not stand up anymore - it’s considerably muted by its white color and the Caribic-like blue sky.
What a change from last year! Designs with various ice structures and dramatic skies I experienced got so deep under my skin that they became an integral part of this trip many months ago.
And now I struggle.
I guess I struggle more with my own assumptions and visualisations rather than with the conditions themselves. I should have come empty and open, but instead, I brought only ideas that were based on what I was thinking I will see. Everything is different though and I’m in dispute with reality, unable to connect myself with my subject the way one needs to create a meaningful art.
Baikal is teaching me a grand lesson.
Trip participants
It does not mean at all that I don't have fun. Enjoying my new friends (@followourdreams, @jarda.zakravsky) and old buddy Stefan, listening to the drivers’ stories, admiring capabilities of their UAZ 2206, trying new photographic disciplines, testing my iPhone creativity, walking under full moon.
Caption: Dreaming of Clouds, Camera: Nikon D810, Lens: Nikkor 16-35mm, Focal Length: 16mm, Exposure: 16s, Aperture: f/11, ISO: 1600, No filters
And maybe, after I write it off me, also the connection will finally come. Or a better weather at least. :-)