Photography, Time and the Alps

By: Levi Olson

Mont Blanc

When I signed up for my trip to the Alps, I didn't have a whole lot of expectations. I had no grand designs of meeting new friends, discovering new hobbies or "finding myself". In all honesty I was just looking for a fun way to spend my paid time off, enjoy a few hikes and relax a little bit. Once the trip ended, I thought I would return home, go back to work and count down the days until the next vacation just like I always had. In a sense, you could say going on the trip was a spur of the moment decision and a questionable use of finances. Even bringing my camera was an afterthought, it was after all a last second purchase from my dad, I didn't even know how to use the thing.

Lake Geneva

So off I went on my little 11-day excursion into Europe, camera in hand, with 26 other strangers. Those first few days were strange to say the least. Having not slept an hour on the plane, I arrived overtaken by jetlag, a zombie fumbling around in the city of Lausanne at ungodly hours of the night, barely able to make conversation with my fellow travelers. Thankfully things changed fast once we got properly into the mountains and started hiking. I'm a loner at heart, but when you're stuck on a trail with the same group of people six hours a day for two weeks surrounded by mountains, you form a traveler's bond of sorts, or at least I did. There's nothing quite like experiencing a new country, or a new landscape with people you've just met a couple days prior and let me tell you these were some of the most interesting, fun people I've ever had the pleasure of traveling with, hailing from every corner of North America and Europe all with vastly different experiences from my own. Yet somehow, by some act of God, we all ended up in the same place at the same time for 11 days, and the crazy part is we all got along with each other. I don't know call it fate or something.

Once the hikes began, those 11 days moved fast. I quickly gained a newfound appreciation and joy for photography and was trying to take every opportunity to get as many shots as I could. All the while, I found myself surrounded by newfound friends in one of the most beautiful places in the world. Of course, by the time I realized all of this, the trip was coming to an end, and our time together was brought to a close. It was a bittersweet farewell to say the least, it was sad saying our goodbyes, but nevertheless I was excited, excited to return to friends and family at home, excited to take up photography, and excited for what I was going to do with my time when I returned to America.

The Mer de Glace

Time is interesting, isn't it? Every hour of every day is exactly the same as any other, 60 minutes, 3600 seconds. Yet an hour spent in Europe sure feels a lot different than an hour spent in the office. A day out with friends and family is much different from a regular day at home. This is what dawned on me during my time in the mountains, surrounded by so many people taking advantage of every second they had and living life to the fullest. I realized time is our most precious resource. Whether you believe in life after death or not, our time on earth is finite more so than anything else we have. We can always make more money, but no matter how hard we try we can never make more time. We'll never get more time to spend with family and friends, we'll never get more time to see the world and try new things. I couldn't tell you exactly when, but at some point on the trip I realized I wanted to take advantage of every second of every day when I got home. I didn't want this enjoyment of the outdoors and time spent with friends to be a one-time fleeting feeling like so many other trips before. I didn't want it to be a mere pitstop in a year full of the mundane. I was going to start filling my available time with all the things and people that I loved, I was going to truly start living. That's why I've decided to make this blog, not just as a showcase of my amateur photography skills, but as a highlight reel of my life and all the beautiful moments and people within it.

Click here if you want to check out more pictures from the alps: https://www.thaiguylevi.com/portfolio-collections/my-portfolio/the-alps

Travelers, Adventurers, Friends