City Boy Lost in the Woods
While living in a busy, pollited and digital city such as Berlin, going into nature is required for me to stay sane.
The 9-5 gets me down. Adventure is one of my values and I worry there is not enough of it in my life. Buying a van and running away is often on my mine. I’m not sure it will fix the real problem in the long term. For a few weeks now I’ve propped my speakers with a thin book. They are very directional and need something to angle them towards my ears.
Eventually I realised that the book I was using was a hiking book. 40 or so mini-adventures waiting be surmounted. Tomorrow I am going to a village called Groß Köris for a 15km hike. It should take four hours. The weather isn’t going to be pretty but depression is also an emotion.
There’s all kinds of interesting characters on the train. I made a distinction of me being a city dweller and these people going far away, they must live outside the city.
Upon arriving I am in another world. I maintain my brisk city tempo until it naturally slows down. The lack of foot traffic or otherwise tells me there is nothing to rush for. My goal is to complete the hike using the book alone. The challenge is that the book is in German.
No sooner do I approach a lake do I see several huge cranes flying over my head.
“Holy shit! Nature”
I realise how unprepared I am for bird photography as I stumble across Fuji’s menus. Subject detection, birds. Shutter speed as high as I can. My zoom len’s most telephoto focal length is 80mm (FF equiv.). I still manage to get this franky - rediculous crop, from the 40MP sensor of the X-T5.
I am reminded that there are things outside of 27 inch displays. As I carry on still in awe, a local boy cycles past. He throws me a gentle smile. I had forgotten what brotherliness is when I am used to facing potentially hostile drunks and addicts.
The path carries on as I say goodbye to the village. It is only me now and the forest.
If I stop to think about it, it’s unsettling how quiet it is. There is no one else. I have the feeling if I did see someone walking my way, it would be very strange. As if the question we would be mentally asking of the other person:
“What are you doing out here alone? Weirdo.”
I approach some cow friends. They are as unsettled by my presence as I am of theirs. It’s natural to see cows in this part of the world, but I have not seen a creature bigger than me in a while. I imagine for a moment that they rage and charge through their fence, attacking me. If it happens, there is no one from my species nearby to defend me.
I leave the cows to face my solitude and after a while I start to perk up. Pretty soon I start whistling, then singing Arctic Monkey’s The View From The Afternoon.
Fuji’s 16-55mm f2.8
Is the lens I brought on this hike. It is by no means a travel lens, weighing in at 800g and the size of a pint glass. Prior to this hike my recommendation for anyone getting into photography was to get a prime. You get better image quality, lighter, smaller and most importantly; some kind of limitation over what you can capture or not. Limitation focuses us on what we can do which what we have. This is something I disagreed with my father about but after taking a zoom on a hike - I can permit it does offer more possibilities.
So many possibilities in fact that I realise I’m not making time at all. It will be dark before I’m back at the station, the trains only once an hour, and I have a meeting at 6pm. I step on it. I near a town called Neubrück. I expected something more substantial. My view is distorted by the otherwise emtpy map. A man is chopping wood outside his house. I ask him for directions. It was a pleasant interaction.
I am half way round, and I start to feel tired. A sign, “Seeblick”, proves irresistible. I soon find myself at peace with land and water.
It would be a great place to come for swimming in the summer. The air hits different.
“Oh yes, I remember this. Fresh air.”
My body seems to say. So long has it been in the city, that it has forgotten what a degraded alternative it has substituted clean air for. As I leave Groß Köris, I think it likely that I will return.
