Familiar Ground

Today was an uninteresting day.

It was Monday, and I made the decision not to train. The weather shifted late yesterday, so I checked the forecast. Snow was coming — and not just a little.

So, without much hesitation, I skipped training and headed for the mountain with my camera instead.

When I woke, the light outside confirmed what I already knew. Cold. Grey. Heavy. One of those days that doesn’t ask anything of you, but doesn’t offer much either.

After a quick breakfast, I packed my bag and caught a last-minute bus to the base of the mountain. Snow lined the road. The windows fogged from the breath of thirty-five people quietly questioning their choices. That doubt became sharper the moment the bus doors opened and the cold rushed in, unapologetic and final.

The rule for the day became simple — keep moving. It was the only way to stay warm, the only way to stay present.

The higher I climbed, the harder the snow fell. My fingers stiffened. My body tightened. But the mountain was beautiful in that harsh, indifferent way nature often is. It was a good day to take photographs and an even better day to forget about Kung Fu altogether.

I had hoped the snow would reveal something new — a different character to a mountain I’ve walked many times before. But it didn’t. The views changed, yet the feeling remained the same. I stopped in the same places I always do. Not out of habit or laziness — they are simply the strongest angles on that path, regardless of season.

Which left me with a quiet realisation.

Either I need to change the way I see things, or I need to change what I’m looking at.

I’m open to both. But if I’m being honest, I know which way I’m leaning.

Photography, for me, has always been about people. Landscape can be beautiful, but it rarely holds me for long. It lacks the friction, the story, the subtle tension that humans carry without trying.

Just the way it is.