End frame: Spirit of the mountains

Mattia Oliviero

I am lucky in living in a small city in the Italian Alps with beautiful places for hiking. Since 2008 I have started using a camera to capture what I like about the landscape close to where I live. Landscape photography allows me to express my creativity and at the same time enjoying the nature.

Such a great challenge and honour for me to write an end frame article for On Landscape magazine. Thank you for the opportunity.

Recently, I have started to wonder less about how an image is taken and more about its power of striking a chord. This way of approaching an image, from an enthusiast photographer’s point of view, can be very useful to improve as a photographer and to understand photography more as a creative art.

I am pretty sure that everyone can list several favourite images for the most various reasons. Sometimes it is because of the light, sometimes it is thanks to the gorgeous subject or sometimes it is an original composition. However, we are not always able to explain why an image means so much to us. This happens (at least to me) when every part of the image spreads emotions and feelings towards the viewer. Well, despite the different tastes and preferences I think that the majority of us aims at making this kind of images. Of course not an easy task…

The image I choose has exactly the power of summarizing most of the feelings and emotions I feel when I am in the mountains and in nature in general. Above all, it is “responsible” for my transition from grand landscapes to more intimate landscape photography (together with other much appreciated artists such as Guy Tal, Hans Strand and Theo Bosboom among others).