ashka's trips into the great wide open

My Photo scholarship 2010 entry

Worldwide | Saturday, October 16, 2010 | 5 photos

I have chosen 5 photos taken on a beautiful day in the autumn of 2009 when we went to the south of Rila mountain, to a magical wild place called Treshtenik. All of Bulgaria's mountains are gorgeous and have their specific charm, but I love going to Rila more than anywhere else. And especially to Treshtenik - it takes us all day to get there and after sufficient climbing we get to a grassy plateau (6000 feet) from where all the other mountain ranges are visible all around; the feeling really is like you're on top of the world, but not like on a bare peak, but in a cozy hidden area that is full of life and colours. Most places we go to on a holiday, as beautiful as they are, cannot convey the sense of peace and freedom I get from just one day spent hiking through the meadows of Treshtenik. The way we get there is not with car, but by train, bus and then by foot, all the while the scenery gets more and more beautiful and once you think it can't get any better suddenly you "enter" a shrime like region - wild and untouched, with free roaming cows and horses, with only the sounds of nature heard. Every step you take leads you to yet another small or big medow and the illusion is that you're going from room to room, since every meadow is "designed" in a different style, either sprayed with yellow mossy stones, decorated with rope-like dead trees and dry flowers, or surrounded by a fence of huddled spruce trees.
I took these photos spontaneously and I decided not to "touch" them digitally. I have been to the most wild and untouched place in Bulgaria and it is my dream to go to one of the most wild and untouched places in the world - Bhutan. I am a painter and an animatior, but I've always felt a special love for photography and for me this scholarship is a chance to learn more about this art and to develop my visual perception and technical skills.