Nature's Vitality

Eight years ago, I fell in love with the craft of telling stories through video. It’s amusing to reminisce on the elementary days, back when I used to shoot those cheesy lego stop motion films with the family quick shot camera. It’s equally interesting to reflect on how those creative projects have grown more complex over the years. I turned 20 this year, and consider myself very lucky to have found my passion in life at such a young age. There's some pretty strong conviction inside that I will continue to create videos for the rest of my life. The only variable in question is, what kind of stories will I tell?

Most recently, my biggest source of inspiration stems from an appreciation for the vast beauty of this world. I’ve come to realize that to be alive on this planet is quite possibly the greatest gift we could ever receive. We truly have won the lottery; the perfect composition of rock and water has formed into one planet, the exact distance from the sun necessary to sustain life. Over millions of years life has developed on its surface, that lives in symbiotic balance and harmony. Every single creature is an immaculate design down to each cell. The more I think about this, the more I feel compelled to go out and capture its beauty in creative ways.

With this motive in mind, I set out this summer with the intent to capture what nature means to me in one photo. Photography is not my main expertise, but I decided this would be a good challenge to mix things up. The goal was not just to showcase nature’s beauty, but to represent the quintessence of my relationship with it; I wanted to visualize how nature makes me feel.

So I dug up some memories and reflected on the past experiences I’ve had in the great outdoors. When I tap into the backcountry, the thoughts of day to day life slowly begin to melt away, time slows, and a definitive sense of connection grounds me to the world I’m immersed in. Nature can be a revitalizing paradise that provides the purest mental clarity. However, on the other end of the spectrum, I’ve had some frightening experiences in the high country. Bike crashes that have nearly sent me tumbling down sloped sides. Drives across compromised mountain roads and through rivers, where at any point, the vehicle could become stuck. I’ve been alone in the dark, far from civilization, with the eerie feeling of not knowing what creatures may be watching from the shadows. And there have been a number of close calls with the menacing rattlesnakes of the drier climates. These experiences all stir up a level of uncertainty and require you to be vigilant. But even though nature can be dangerous, it can be just as euphoric. Regardless, it makes me feel alive. This is the common denominator. So in my photo, I decided this is the feeling I would set out to capture.

I’m fortunate enough to live on the front range of Colorado, with some of nature’s best mountains waiting right in my backyard. Because they are an epitomizing example of nature’s timeless, rugged, imperfectly perfect beauty, I decided I would take the photo somewhere in them, either at sunrise or sunset. Now, I needed to integrate a human aspect into the picture. I started by imagining the sounds of being in the mountains. Listening to the sounds of my mind, I heard the soft whisper of skis, lifting off from a pillow of powder and floating into the winter air, as the surrounding snowflakes lay down to rest. I pictured the crunching of gravel, pulsing to the cadence of a runner's shoes as they thump through a forest trail. I thought of the soothing rustle of aspen leaves in the breeze, as birdsong filling the occasional silence. And then I imagined the beating of a heart and the breathing of lungs, paired to the flow of two tires across the pine needles of a bike trail. This thought really resonated with me. Mountain biking holds a special place in my heart; it was the first activity that got me into alpine sports. To me, it offers a bit of everything to both the mind and body. There are reflective, meditative times when your mind empties and it’s just you, the trees, and the wildlife. There are times that make you stronger by pedaling hard and pushing the boundaries of your capability. And there are fast and free times when you float through the rollers of an exhilarating descent. So for this photo, I decided mountain biking was the activity that would best capture that electric vitality of being in the natural world.

After taking some time to articulate a vision for the photo, I hit up my old friend Christian-- a talented downhill collegiate racer-- to ask how he’d like to model in an epic photo. It would feature a biker in the foreground illuminated by colored lights, with the backdrop of a mountain range at sunset. He was all in on the idea, but we only had a week to execute before I left for a trip to Durango, and he left for Wisconsin. So we decided to shoot that Tuesday-- which was in three days. Immediately I ordered the lights and began combing google earth for a spot that would afford justice to the image in my head. I hunted for two days to nail down a vantage point that would feature a mountain vista facing the sunset, with a downhill trail in the foreground that could be ridden towards the camera. Scouting online for this specific kind of terrain proved much more difficult than anticipated. At times I questioned whether it was even worth it to keep searching, because it began to feel unrealistic to find the perfect location by Tuesday. At one point I nearly threw in the towel. Any options I could find were either too far, not scenic enough, or lacked a trail. But knowing how much I had already invested, I persevered, clinging to the belief that there was a photo out there waiting to be captured. And shortly after, to my avail I came across a spot locally known as Lost Gulch Outlook. It wasn’t actually a bike trail. Not even a trail to begin with; but rather a jagged rock formation on the edge of a cliff side. I had doubts about the bikeability of the terrain, but was willing to chance it knowing Christian’s skills. The background encompassed the exact landscape I coveted-- a west facing view, filled with mountain layers and a horizon laced with peaks that towered above treeline.

The following day was Tuesday, and the weather presented a new challenge. It was humid, gusty, and overcast all day-- conditions that many would consider far less than ideal for a brilliant sunset. I was convinced we wouldn’t see a good one that evening, but knowing this was our only time to shoot that month, we made the 40 minute drive out to Boulder, and winded our way up Flagstaff road. And to my surprise, the summit presented us with a brilliant skyscape; the clouds had briefly parted, making room for the sun to infuse them with golden-orange highlights as it cast a reddish pink glow across the horizon.

As we hiked over to the shooting spot, a new obstacle presented itself: a crowd of tourists hindering the view from the vantage point we came all the way out to shoot from. Lacking any alternatives, I composed the shot in a different direction, we installed the wheel lights, lit up the rocks, and Christian began to session a narrow line of rocks on his bike. With the stream of visitors constantly coming and going, we had to continually modify our approach to avoid them. But after a dozen takes or so, the cluster briefly cleared, and we capitalized on the moment. I composed a camera angle overlooking the ledge into the distant mountains, Christian began the descent, and I took the shot. It was a moment of victory. After a multi-day uphill battle, when there was never any guarantee of any good outcome to begin with, we got what we came for. Within the composition, a biker stands frozen in time as he descends a narrow ridge, with the bike and terrain glowing in the luminescent, electric energy of the adventure. In the distance, a broad mountain range paired with a vibrant sunset backdrop work together to complete the scene. It was a quintessential visual depiction of the way nature makes me come alive. All at once, the days I had spent trying to conceptualize an idea worthy of people’s time, coordinating in a compressed time frame, struggling to location scout, dealing with weather uncertainty, and navigating around a mess of tourists, all became worth it when the image in my imagination came to fruition.

After we captured it, I used Adobe Lightroom to bring out the tones in the sky, and Photoshop to smooth out the lights on the wheels to create a continuous circle. This was the most resource-hungry and involved photo I’d ever invested in, but I’m so glad that I did. It turned out to be a great venture out of the usual film making realm into the world of photography, and it inspired me to practice more.

In the end, I think there are always a few keys to making any kind of art. You need to have a vision, a plan to bring that vision to life, and you have to know your ‘why’. That is the reason you push on and keep creating when adversity presents itself. For me, the ‘why’ was in part just knowing internally that the photo could be captured, but also in realizing the potential of this photo to inspire others to see our world's wonder in the same way I see it. The natural world is far more than a miracle of existence, and far more than the mere origin of our roots. It is a grounding space we can tap into anytime, to disconnect, reset, and come alive. It offers exhilaration, challenge, and a space of mental clarity that breeds new ideas. Nature is, after all, the very entity that inspired this photo. So get out there every once in a while-- seek the rich tapestry of inspiration and vitality it has to offer. The living world is always happy to welcome you home.