What happened next

So much can be fascinating in the animal kingdom. Details that you would never have noticed otherwise. Until the start of 2022, I had plenty of opportunities to explore the local nature in Germany and MV more closely. At the end of the year, I finally took some time to watch a few documentaries again. One in particular had burnt itself into my memory: ‘My teacher the octopus’. In this 1.5-hour documentary film, in which Craig Foster establishes a connection to a cephalopod and to nature and the environment, I noticed many parallels to my own story. Seven years of studying and looking for a job was very exhausting. And as everyone has probably realised at some point, you are regularly exposed to challenging phases in life. The stress level can be quite high all the time. But interacting with animals and observing nature had grounded me again. This interaction gave me completely new insights and perspectives, which put many views into perspective and brought much more calm into my everyday life.

Depending on the time and motivation, I immersed myself much more in different photographic directions. Macros and animals became particularly exciting with the new Z6II, one of Nikon’s mirrorless successors to DSLRs. Although the D750 is already relatively well suited for detail shots and good signal-to-noise ratios, it lacks options such as software-supported focus stacking or high continuous shooting speeds. The second point in particular plays a very important role. With the now somewhat old D750 SLR camera, I kept missing situations due to the slow continuous shooting speed. The 14 frames per second available with the Z6II and an impressive image stabiliser open up completely new possibilities. Above all, photography in certain areas has become considerably easier.