Photographing a feeling

“Jaaack!”

Nothing. Silence. Darkness.

I stood there in the warm summer evening wondering if I should try again. Armed with only a star chart and small flashlight who’s only function was dim red, I felt a little vulnerable in the pitch black night.

“JACK”, I chirped once more.

Nothing.

Only an hour before I’d wandered a few hundred meters up behind my uncle’s cabin to an open spot in the forest. My summers were spent at our family property at 8000 feet in a remote corner of California’s Sierra Nevada. With the exception of a Basque shepherd, the nearest anything was about 20 miles away. I was a kid lucky enough to get to Huck Finn around, fishing for breakfast in a tiny creek, panning for gold, learning all about the natural world, and spending time slaving away for my uncle Jack, who also happened to be my hero. I was 10, and I’d taken an interest to learn the stars.

It was clear I couldn’t find my way back to the cabin after wandering around in who knows which direction. I was lost. Admitting defeat, I tugged some branches off a pine tree, curled up in the dirt, piled the branches on top of me and lay staring up the sky.

What does any of this have to do with photography? Nothing and everything. More than 30 years later, I still remember those moments laying in the dirt. I wasn’t scared, I was only in awe of the mountains, the feelings they gave me, and the life I might be able to have in them. Maybe I was too young to understand at the time what was happening, but I’d just locked on to a direction. Those feelings stayed with me.

Gently, I fell asleep.

Dan Patitucci is a professional mountain sport and travel photographer. Together with his wife Janine, they manage PatitucciPhoto from Interlaken, Switzerland. 

I’ve spent most of my life since that time in the mountains, playing, working, living my life. Somewhere along the way I discovered I enjoyed making photos, and I wasn’t too bad at it. I especially enjoy making photos in the mountains, of the things I love doing, the things that give me the same feeling as when I lay under that tree.

As I grow older I spend more and more time thinking about why I do what I do. What were all the influences that made a difference? Why do I make the images I make, and what does my style say about me?

This summer, I’ve been doing an enormous amount of uphill running, which of course provides for long hours thinking. I’ve noticed that on some runs, in some places, there comes a certain time. It’s a time when I feel intensely happy, energized, and alive. Typically it occurs when I’m alone, usually above tree line, and with big, wide open views.

That’s the time, flying solo through the environment where I feel most at home. When that time comes, I’m 10 years old again and laying in the dirt surrounded by the mountains, nothing has changed.

I believe I have been making photos of this feeling for a very long time. 

Not so long ago, but long after that night. My aunt, Jack’s wife, asked if I remembered the night I got lost studying the stars.

“Yes, of course”.

“Well, we heard you yelling, but Jack thought it would be best for you to spend a little time out there on your own.”

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