Holidays at the very beginning of the summer
For the last couple of years, I’ve been experimenting with when to take a rest from my everyday job. Most of my workmates opt for two weeks somewhere between the middle of July and the last days of August.
I’ve tried few different approaches, each time justifying my choice: “Go on your holiday as the rest, it’s proven best”, “Be the first one who is resting” or: “Be the last – certainly you’ll take amazing shots of the autumn forest if you take your days off in October.”
Well, so much for the October holidays – I thought it would never stop raining. And since I don’t like the shrinking duration of August days, finally I decided… the best would be the opposite!
My holidays now usually start right before the astronomical summer and cover the very longest days (and the very shortest nights).
But what such a home bird as me should do with so many free and sunny hours? After I had caught up with sleeping, suddenly I thought: “There is no excuse now”. I didn’t have a plan nor idea where to go and what to shoot. I just grabbed my beautiful X-T1, XF 35mm F1.4 and Samyang 50mm F1.2 and went outside.
Not planned, not long waited, but one has to begin somehow
That walking evening was really refreshing, and after loading RAFs into “darktable” I thought that maybe I could take a few more pleasantly looking pictures in the following days, despite not going further than my feet could take me.
The simplest thing – I realised I had never taken a picture of the main street in my small town. That certainly needed to be addressed!
So close, so far away. Time to have a look at my surroundings… and test the new Fujifilm Recipe!
Of course, it’s really awesome to return home and discover freshly baked cake in your kitchen!
Late evening with strawberry cake, ambient light and tripod
It also appeared, that staying up late (as you don’t have to worry about your alarm clock the next day) could benefit… if only you looked out through the window.
Noctilucent clouds at midnight. Panorama from few images
The days were coming and going and I thought it was high time for me to find a legend. Literally. There is a story about a devil, who desperately wanted to destroy the local church when it was being built. He set off for finding a stone large enough to throw and crush the cathedral. The devil succeeded in finding it, but wasn’t able to bring it close to the church before the dawn – his strength left him as soon as the cathedral bells sang and he dropped the rock right where he was standing – in the middle of a river.
I have never seen that Devil’s Rock, even though it was supposed to be in 1-2 hours march from me, so together with my dear friend, we went to find – and photograph (!) – it.
It turned out to be not so easy, as fields and woods covered it completely and did their best to discourage us.
The wood was dark, but we were pushing through
Finally, we found it! After abundant rains, the river was high, and the rock didn’t look as enormous as the legend says, but we decided to take some photos nonetheless.
Devil’s Rock in the middle of a forest river
Dark and muggy forest ended and we saw nice, spacious fields – our way back home
This is how I spent my holidays at home, trying to shoot places I’ve never shot before.
And what can be better than homemade ice cream?
RIGHT: Fuji X-T1 . Fuji XF35mmF1.4 @35mm . f/2.8 . 1/60″ . ISO 800
My first and second attempt to make ice cream at home
Lives and works in a small town in northern Poland ever since he was born in 1989. For five days a week, he takes care of prepress and colour in digital printing at a local print shop. When he doesn’t look at the spectrophotometer’s readouts, he tries to make his photographs less geeky-perfect but having more soul and memories instead.
