In the second decade of October I join the photo workshop leaded by Jiri Stransky, QEP holder and the first Czech winner of European photographer of the year in the landscape category. It was not my first photo workshop, but it was first one provided in spirit of expedition. Spirit of expedition means that we spent most of time in the nature, far far away from civilization. Yes, you’re right, we slept in tent or in the open air.
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October seems for people like very late period to spend five days in mountains around 2500 meters above see level. But the weather is very stable in Dolomites at this time, however night temperature around 5 degrees below zero is not very friendly. Moreover walking whole day with heavy back pack (photo equipment, sleeping bag, groundsheet, tent, additional dress, meat and water as a minimum) could not be supposed by many people like right type of spending vacation. Additionally, mainly preparation for morning’s shooting (early get-up, take photo equipment and make another 100-150 meters of ascend to find right place) requires self-denial for most of us. And for me, personally, the worst moment was my drop at the beginning of via ferrata of Paternkofel during the second day.
Fortunately, we were rewarded by beautiful sceneries, not only during sunrises and sunsets, but even also during our tracks. White rocks changed its color in dependency to sun position, strength, light and create monument sceneries together with its shadows, deep canyons, green valleys, blue lakes, golden larch’s woods and sometimes with snow. We missed only clouds in the last three days. However, in my opinion, everybody from us forget pain, stress and tempest if took camera and shoot great picture. You can find some of these shoots in the following Dolomites gallery.
Despite the fact the most of us did not know other participants of the workshop before, we made very good company very quickly. It means that we have fun during trips and photo sessions. We talked a lot and we found similar minds, not even in photography area. Hope we will stay in the contact in the future.
And where we were? Mostly close to the places which I put near in the past by mountain bike. We started workshop within the lake Lago di Braies, we continued around Tre Cime di Lavaredo rocks, then over the nature around Passo Falzarego and Passo di Giau and finished in Valparolla.
That all means that time spent during the workshop was grateful and I would like to return time to digest this experience again! So, if you have similar chance, don’t hesitate and go for it.
