on landscape The online magazine for landscape photographers

Intimate woodland

Rediscovering the tranquillity

Fabrizio Marocchini

I am an ICT professional and for me photography is a passion. I love nature, I like hiking and explore it, from the mountains to the sea...all the elements! I love staying for hours waiting for the right light... with my camera, my tripod and my emotions...thinking of the composition and listening to the sound of the sea. Thanks in advance to all the people that will appreciate my work.

fabriziomarocchini.com



There is a forest, in the north of Rome, almost undiscovered and perhaps for this very special to me. It is named Macchia Grande and can be reached by driving for an hour and a half in Viterbo countryside.

A forest, an atmosphere, a journey of emotions.

I have been always living and working in a big city, where the noise of people, night and day, chasing chaotic rhythm, is everywhere. I often spend days too full of commitments, phone calls, jobs, meetings, losing myself and what I really love doing. Therefore, it becomes important for me to have a refuge from the daily madness where I can escape, and this forest is really a hidden corner of total tranquillity.

Taking photographs is, first of all, connecting with the most inner part of myself, and trying to capture, in one shot, what I am feeling at that moment.

The mornings of winter bring with them the magic of places hidden by a misty layer, which slowly thins out, discovering the shapes and colours of intertwined branches, each one ready to tell its story.
I have been walked a lot in this wood last cold December. Whenever I could run away from my daily duties, I woke up very early, preparing my thermos of coffee to arrive before the sunrise. When the fog still enveloped all the trees.

Some might think that walking alone in a forest in the first light of the morning can be dangerous and scary. For me, nature is a source of inspiration and serenity; it gives us emotions in a unique way and for this, it is always worth observing it.

The mornings of winter bring with them the magic of places hidden by a misty layer, which slowly thins out, discovering the shapes and colours of intertwined branches, each one ready to tell its story.

A story that brings us back to the childhood fantasy, which seems to talk about fairies, dancing elves, lost princes and princesses who have hidden their kingdoms among these curved trees, to show them only to those who have the imagination to believe it yet.

I could not see almost anything in front of me, I only felt the crunch of the dry branches and the leaves under my shoes which, in the silence, increased the feeling of being in an enchanted place. Oaks with branches of green ivy still intertwined close to the trunks appeared to me, golden leaves shining and filtering the sunlight seemed dancing in the cold.

Thus, the forest wakes up, slow and sly.

Walking along the paths, I come across two horses that slowly ate still frozen grass, without looking at me, as if I hadn't been there. They were beautiful and wild.

The photos shown in this small project are the emotions I felt during those winter mornings, minute by minute. They allowed me to rediscover the tranquillity I needed, finding again myself, my memories, and the most precious and intimate part of me.

The hidden geometries, chaotic and so ordered as a whole attracted me most. So, I got lost in the wood, watching and taking pictures of particular connections that for me are intimate and perfect.

Nobody, in those mornings, had still woken this part of nature ... And I was lucky to have seen its beauty for first. The hours passed, the fog cleared, the temperature rose a little and the colours become sharper and brighter, ready to let a new day begin.

This is not simply a forest for me, but a refuge of thoughts and a door to my imagination.

The photos shown in this small project are the emotions I felt during those winter mornings, minute by minute. They allowed me to rediscover the tranquillity I needed, finding again myself, my memories, and the most precious and intimate part of me.



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