FINDING THE NATURAL LIGHT
Hilde Christensen
Do you ever dream of going to Africa and photographing the awe-inspiring wildlife? Or to America to capture the beautiful landscapes? I certainly do. However, such opportunities do not always materialise for all of us. I live in Norway and am housebound due to illness, quite impractical considering my love is nature photography.
Recently I had been losing motivation to photograph at all due to this reason, until I read an interview with photographer Audun Rikardsen. He said that he took most of his photos in his local area because that’s where he knew the motives, the landscape, the backgrounds, and when and where the most beautiful light would turn up. As a result of that I began to look at my immediate surroundings, and in particular, my garden. We had done a bit of rewilding by letting trees and bushes grow as they wished, so it had already turned into a space where birds liked to frequent, especially when encouraged by quite a bit of bird seeds and water.
That’s when I really discovered the lives of the little ones living here, the ones who are so easy to overlook. Every spring new baby birds are born, and it’s pure delight to see them come out of their nests, so eager and naïve, with parents who work so hard to raise their little chicks. I found sleeping baby sparrows outside my kitchen window and was happy to see how safe they felt. I ended up discovering a world that had been sitting at my door all my life, but I had ignored whilst being busy with everything else. I guess photography can be about finding light when you thought there was none, and finding opportunity in new places.
This article first appeared in PRISMA, Issue 11.