Collection: “Fractal Visions – The Awe From Above”

 

The artist behind the images:

José Ramos is a landscape photographer and doctor from Portugal, currently living in Lisbon. He started his photographic career eighteen years ago, captivated by the newly developed digital technology in visual creative arts.   This passion for digital art and photography became the artistic medium he has chosen to express himself; the goal of his art is to pay homage to the beauty and power of the world which surrounds us.

His images have been published several times in National Geographic (print and digital versions) and in many other international photography magazines.  He has received several international photo awards and his work has been featured on Discovery, The Telegraph, CNN Travel, Sony and others.  José leads photography tours in Portugal and he greatly enjoys helping other photographers on their own path of artistic discovery.  Beyond image making and teaching, he has also collaborated with many international photography brands, including BenQ, LG, Thinktank, Nisi, FLM, Huawei, Honor, Vivo, Vallerret and others. His work is sold as fine art prints worldwide and is now also available for sale as exclusive NFTs.  

José divides his time between two careers – working as a professional photographer and as a physician specialized in psychiatry.  He strongly feels that there is a creative synergy between his work as a photographer and a psychiatrist; the commonalities and differences of each discipline mutually enrich and foster his work.

Conceptually speaking, José very often offers his personal thoughts, experiences and creative or philosophical reflections about his images.  In his work, the image creation process is just beginning when he captures his landscapes with the press of a shutter button.  This process continues during his selection and final editing of portfolio images, is documented in his own written words, and later is carried on by the reactions, thoughts, and emotions of each person who views the final image.  In a way, his audience re-creates the image inside themselves, made unique by their own experiences and viewpoints.  For José, his images are intrinsically intended to raise awareness of the natural world and to support protection of the environment.  Each image contains embedded concepts, stories, and philosophies, acknowledging both the fragility and the power of Humankind in an ever changing and intensely fascinating world.

 

The Collection Concept:

 

Nature’s patterns repeat themselves endlessly, from the microscopic fractal arrangement of biological structures, to the braiding of glacial river channels or ramifications of a tree. Beauty and awe lie around every corner of Nature, with some incredible surprises only visible when looking from above.

These images show fresh first snowfall patterns, deposited over the channels of a braided glacial river in the Icelandic highlands, captured with a drone. This was one of the most incredible photographic experiences I have ever had, as I had never seen such intensely three-dimensional patterns come to life by placing the drone camera at a very specific angle and height.

There is so much scope for imagination when viewing an image like this, with so many potential recognizable shapes and emotional triggers, with each person looking at it in its own individual way.

There are plenty of fascinating aerials of Icelandic rivers, usually shot from high altitudes during plane/helicopter/drone flights, but this was a low altitude shot of a unique transient phenomenon, which did not last more than a few hours, as only the right amount of snow would be able to create this visual illusion, and on the next day all had vanished. A perfect example of serendipity…

 

 

The story behind the images:

 

This collection is made of 20 rare and unique images, organized in the chronological order through which they were taken, starting with the discovery of this location, then followed by approaching and selecting captivating compositions, locating the three-dimensional patterns at the distance, driving nearer to the spot and then creating the remaining images.

Even though all the images in this collection were captured during a single 3-hour continuous session in September 2018 – a session which I would call “The Awe” – the time and space dimension of this work extends way beyond this period, which I decided to divide in chapters, being thus composed by the preceding weeks of “Preparation”, days of “Desperation”, and then succeeded by years of “Contemplation”, months of “Struggle”, weeks of “Nurturing” and, hopefully, a future of “Enlightenment”.

Below you can find more details about each chapter, with the last one yet to be written by me and the collectors of these images.

 

 

The Story Chapters:

Chapter I – “Preparation”

Preparing a photo-trip to a place like Iceland involves weeks of preparation, getting clothes cleaned and waterproofed, inventing new ways of getting into the freezing water without suffering too much, coming up with new ways to charge endless batteries while spending weeks off the grid, budgeting, establishing collaborations with brands, choosing flights, and so much more, all of this while handling all the demands of being a Psychiatrist and a Photographer at the same time.

 

 

Chapter II – “Desperation I”

After discovering the potential for aerial photography in Iceland in 2017, I knew I had to go better prepared in 2018. One of the images I had made in 2017 got an Honorable Mention in the International Drone Awards Competition, even though I struggled a lot with the low image quality of my drone back then. I wanted to get higher quality images for the 2018 trip, so I was eagerly waiting for the release of the then new and supposedly revolutionary Dji Mavic 2 Pro drone, which would be released a few weeks before my trip. I will not go into specific details, but to my surprise I found myself involved in a scam by someone who I thought to be a photographer friend, through which I would get the drone at a special price, and it took me one full week to realize something fishy was going on. After getting no reliable feedback from the other side, and with the money of the first order nowhere to be seen, I took the plunge and decided to place a second order for the drone, ordering it directly myself, hoping I could still get it on time, and hoping I would be able to get my money back from the scammer. As days passed by, the obsessive monitoring of the shipping tracking information was not encouraging at all, and right at the last day before the trip the order got stuck in the UK due to lithium battery regulations inspection. I had practically given up on getting it in time, but then a guardian angel just brought it to my hands right on the day of the trip! I finally got my faithful flying companion, which has been with me since then, meeting these braided river patterns, the epic mountains of the Icelandic highlands, the wonders of the Portuguese coastline and even the sheer power of the recent Icelandic volcano!

 

 

Chapter III – “Desperation II”

After three previous Iceland photo-trips, where I have slept in the trunk of the car and then in a cramped mini-camper, I had finally been able to establish a collaboration with a specialized 4WD camper company, and I knew I finally had a suitable vehicle to photograph the Highlands in 2017. Unfortunately, there were only two days of decent conditions to photograph the highlands, so I came back in 2018 with an even stronger will to properly do it. If there’s a lesson that Iceland teaches you every time you visit it, that lesson is that you always need to expect the unexpected. Over the course of the three weeks of the 2018 trip, I had to go through five severe storms and early snowfall, which almost ruined the plans to visit the long sought-after Highlands, as the mountain roads in Iceland are quickly closed when snow starts falling. As soon as I realized this, I had to totally change the itinerary plans and head straight to the highlands before it was too late. After two failed attempts because of the huge amounts of snow, I found out that I could still access the famous Landmannalaugar area by the west, so there I went, venturing into a barren white tinted other-world, where the usual lusciously colored mountains were replaced by white shapes. This was definitely not the way I intended to contemplate the highlands, but at the same time I knew in my heart that this was also a special and rare way to see this part of the country, and these were the conditions under which I shot these series.

 

 

Chapter IV – “The Awe”

To counterbalance the negative tone of the previous chapters, now it is the time for the moments of “Awe” that make it all worth it. Spending hundreds of accumulated hours of physical, mental and emotional work is immediately compensated in that exact moment when you are suddenly transported out of your body, into the realm of pure and transcendent contemplation, where you just know you are witnessing something rare, unique, special. For a landscape photographer this is the moment when your eyes are overwhelmed by the sheer power of what you see, where “Awe” is no longer just a concept but also an embodied experience. As you can see by the chronological progression of images, the landscape was slowly unveiled before my eyes, first revealing intricate fractal patterns resembling natural elements along with sweeping grand vistas, culminating with the heart stopping view of the three-dimensional snow patterns on the background, made even more intense when photographed from above, at a specific height and angle. I had absolutely no idea that there would be such richness in these scenes, but there definitely some sort of intuition about its potential, an intuition which usually only appears when you spend enough time immersed in Nature. Even more incredible is the fact that I visited this same exact place on the next day, and most of the snow had melted, making the scenery absolutely unrecognizable. I realized these three-dimensional patterns needed the right amount of snow, not too much, not too little, to unveil their beauty, something which only had happened during a few transient and precious hours.

 

 

Chapter V – “Contemplation”

Even though we live in the fast age of social media, where artists are pressured to put out new content every day, I just cannot force myself to create new works just for the sake of it. Sincere art must come from a place of authenticity, where there are no rules except for the rules of the heart, the passion and the need for self-expression. Some of my images stay on my hard drive in their raw forms for years, waiting for the moment when it finally makes sense to select and publish them. Planning, photographing and publishing images is powerfully therapeutical when you respect these inner rhythms of creation, so I always try not to force things. When I shot these images, I had that rare feeling that I just knew something extremely special had been captured, but this set of images lingered on my hard drive for three years. Sometimes, these very special images are the ones we are most “afraid” of, as you don’t want to edit them in a way that won’t make them justice, so you end up postponing their “birth”. In this specific case, there was something else which was completely unusual in my usual workflow regarding image publishing, which delayed the publishing: as time went by I knew that these images had to be published as a collection, where the sequential visual story could be shown and told, where the abstract patterns were complemented by the grand vistas which contained them. I finally realised these images should not be split, as they were part of each other, each branch feeding the one right next to it, all creating the context, the contemplation, the abstraction, the revelation, the emotion, the awe.

I knew this would be a problem, as I’m used to exclusively publish individual images. As I usually say, each image I publish is born from a labor of patience and love, but also of conscious effort, with several dozens of hours spent behind each photo when you consider every step till it is published, including the writing of reflections and stories about the image. Now multiply that by 20 images, and the task quickly starts to feel overwhelming, especially when you are crossing through a pandemic, with an ever-increasing number of psychiatric requests from patients, with less and less time for creative expression.

But then your mind and vision start wandering during difficult times, trying to grasp some air, and these moments and images of relief start invading your imagination. I had long been thinking about these images, and I just knew I couldn’t keep them captive any longer, so I decided to fully dive into creating the full collection, at the expense of not publishing one single new image for months.

 

 

Chapter VI – “The struggle and the let-down”

After selecting and editing some of the images of the collection, and creating the base concept, I decided to post one single abstract teaser image on my Instagram page, to get feedback from followers and evaluate reactions, as this was not my usual type of photographic work. Even though we photographers/artists tend to suffer from “imposter syndrome”, when we publish an image, we always have great hope that it will resonate with viewers.

This publishing experiment on Instagram happened in February 2021, during extremely rough and exhausting times, with lots of accumulated stress and sleep deprivation, having to juggle so many things at the same time. There are times when you just loose focus of what really matters, and your brain reward systems become totally misguided, trying to find a beam of light in every insignificant gesture, giving way too much power to external approval and not taking care of inner integrity.

These are the times when you give way too much importance to social media feedback, and forget the endless path you have made to get to the present moment, letting an algorithm decide on part of your sense of self-worth. The truth is that the reception to the image on Instagram was quite a let-down in terms of “numbers”, even though I got many deep, insightful and unusual comments from photographers I greatly respect, but I just wasn’t in the right place to see it and appreciate it.

The next month was a real struggle, as I wanted to finish the collection but hardly had the motivation to do it, as it felt like there was no suitable place to properly show it and make it justice. Under normal circumstances I would have just backed off, let the images sit for yet another year, and move on with my life, but something deep inside me kept telling me I had to finish this.

I spent a long time looking at the images, trying to understand what they were trying to tell me, totally changing the initial very dark contrasted edits to much brighter and luminous tones, trying to feel at peace with the whole set, making it feel whole and immune to the outer world. I persisted and managed to go as far as possible in creating all the images, until the pandemic restrictions eased off and I was finally able to return to my “home” called Nature, and resumed photo-trips in both Portugal and Iceland.

As time passed by, I started feeling more at peace with the collection, even though I still had no place where I felt I should place it, so it still lied dormant in my computer.

 

 

Chapter VII – “Hope”

I am an average tech enthusiast and like to be updated about new gadgets, software, photo gear (obviously) and the battle between the decentralized enigmatic crypto-coin world and the ultra-regulated every-day society is something I find quite fascinating.

Unfortunately doctors in Portugal have very low wages, or at least the kind of wages that makes it quite unlikely for a young doctor in Portugal to also be an investor, so I have never really entered the crypto world. Then all of a sudden, this strange acronym “NFT” started progressively popping up on social media posts and web articles and my brain just couldn’t grasp the concept and find meaningful value in it.

As time passed by, I started asking questions about NFTs every now and then, but most people were not invested enough into wanting to explain it properly or had the same negative suspicions I had about this world. That was until my photographer friend Babér Afzal took his time to properly explain it to me, strongly encouraging me to experiment and join Twitter, believing in my images as having potential in the NFT Space.

I must confess the last thing I needed was yet another social media network to spend my time in, after working my way up to 106k organic followers on Instagram and 43k followers on Facebook, always with solid engagement, and now living a time where I really wanted to channel more of my energy into photographing, publishing new images and dive deeper into the relationship between Psychiatry and Photography as a therapeutic tool.

Despite this I logged into my dormant Twitter account and decided to spend some time there, not expecting to find what I found: a passionate community of photographers and collectors where, for the first time, I saw a very relevant number of individuals genuinely interested not only in art, but also interested in artists and in the story behind their art. I felt some sort of a “deja vu”, bringing me back to the pre-social media days of the internet, when sharing images in online photo and art communities was such a vibrant experience, where stories and people also mattered, where connections were established beyond likes and metrics. As if this wasn’t enough, collectors were actually putting their money into supporting artists, freeing them from the ever-constant restraints of the art world (i.e., lack of money), enabling them to create more and in a more genuine way.

Even more interesting was the fact that, two weeks after I joined the NFT space on Twitter, a new phenomenon of photo “Collections” emerged on OpenSea (no pun intended), where photographers were being greatly valued when they presented captivating and cohesive sets of images. Right from the beginning I had planned to start by exclusively minting 1/1 artworks on Foundation, but gas fees were always extremely high, which made me wait, and then all of sudden collections were getting so much traction in the space…

Well, I think you know where this led me to, as I stopped for a while after noticing this, breathed in deeply and wondered, “is this the synchronicity moment my images were waiting for?”, “is this the reward for perseverance and belief?”, “is this the place my images were waiting for throughout these rough three years?”. I followed the call, and here I am, announcing this collection which means so much to me. All the dynamics in the NFT Space make a lot of sense to me, and I am definitely here for the long term, as I believe this vision of mutual support can be strengthened over time, helping art have its deserved place as an essential free manifestation of humankind.

 

 

Chapter VIII – “Enlightenment”

This is a yet to be written chapter, which might happen or not, depending on if this project succeeds. I would love to be able to fill it in the future with a description of the final part of this path, filled with the meaningful interactions with fellow photographers and collectors, talking about the people who resonated with the deep passion I have both for nature, for awe and for these scenes. In a perfect world, this chapter will also be written by the people who purchased my artworks, explaining why they did it, what it made them feel, completing the circle of creation, and mutual enrichment, that only art can make possible.

 

 

Donation:

Nature conservation has been absolutely important throughout my life. One of the main goals of my images is to inspire people with the beauty of Nature, making them value it more and, as a consequence, wanting to protect it. When I first ventured into the world of NFTs I was quite hesitant to participate, due to the many articles regarding its carbon footprint. After carefully considering all pros and cons, I decided to partner with the “Give Back to Nature” project, and I will donate 10% of all sales to their reforestation efforts. In my opinion this created increased value for the planet, for me and for collectors.

 

 

Collector’s Extra Benefits:

 

Besides purchasing unique images, and knowing that I will be an active artist in the NFT space for the long term, collectors will get the following benefits when they purchase the works in this collection:

• High resolution file image

• Exclusive access to Discord Server, where collectors can engage with the artist, as well as be notified of future artwork releases before the public.

• If collectors prefer, other direct forms of communication can be provided.

• The feedback from each collector about the artwork will be part of the final chapter of the story about the collection, including his name if so desired. All the chapters, including this one, will be a permanent part of my official website.

• One of the first 10 collectors will be randomly selected and will receive a physical large format (75 x 50cm / 30 x 20 inch) print of one of my portfolio images.

• When the collection sells out, another buyer will be randomly selected to also get a large format print of one of my portfolio images.

• When the collection succeeds on the secondary market and reaches a total volume traded of 15 ETH on OpenSea, all first collectors get to select to receive a printed book or ebook, with all the images of the collection and the story that is part of the collection

 

 

 

Personal statement:

“I was born in a small town in the south of Portugal, and during my childhood, I automatically developed a strong connection to the outdoor world. Nature has always been a safe place where my mind and heart can feel free and heal. At the same time, I have always had a strong creative urge inside me, first channelled through music, later replaced by the discovery of photography, 18 years ago. Photography represented a perfect symbiosis between love for nature and love for art and creation, so I quickly got addicted to it. 

I was in my second year of Med School back then, and I had to invest a lot of time into medical graduation, which in Portugal corresponds to a 6-year university degree, plus one year of generalized hospital practice and then a further 5 years working full time and becoming a specialist. Photography remained for long just a passionate hobby, but things smoothly progressed and photography took off as a serious parallel career 6-7 years ago.

I was able to devote more time to the craft, which brought so many opportunities related to magazine publishing, licensing, collaborations and workshops. During my residency in Psychiatry, I also had the pleasure of creating a Photo Therapy project for psychiatric patients, which taught me a lot about the power of photography to channel emotions and provide opportunities for reflection and inner change. 

Photography can be both used as a therapeutic tool to improve well-being and mental health, with no specific guidelines to do it, or as a tool in a formal psychotherapeutic setting coordinated by a mental health professional, directed to people with mental illness. Both approaches are based on the immense power of images to effectively communicate with our emotional core, triggering sensations, memories, feelings, thoughts, and all kinds of insights. According to most theories that study the therapeutic power of images, there is a consensus that visual inputs can quite often bypass our cognitive defences, being able to establish a deeper connection with the self, opening doors to enhance the exploration of situations that trigger suffering, acting as a “catalyst” of deep-seated memories and emotions. As you might imagine, this has tremendous potential and can be used in all sorts of contexts, from individual self-expression and self-knowledge to coordinated treatment approaches to those who need help. For example, the creation of my own images is definitely therapeutic to me, but they also contain a profound wish to also help others, even if it’s just to let them relax for a brief moment while they delve into the scene or, even better, to make viewers stop, watch, read, integrate, feel, and reach deeper levels of significance that will enrich their present moment.   

It is obviously extremely difficult to manage both careers at the same time, but I cannot imagine one without the other, so I just try as hard as I can to keep pushing forward. My manifesto on my website says: When the aesthetic power of Nature meets a man’s vision of the world, creation takes place and images become the crystallized hybrid product of this encounter. Traveling and endlessly searching for the light, the silence, and the lessons of the landscape”. I love to present my vision of the world as seen through my eyes and soul, hoping I can at least take others there just for a moment, to the moment which lies so intense in my memory, and that’s what really keeps me going.

Landscape photography has given me many gifts: it allowed me to channel my creative urges into the depiction of the natural beauty of the world and gave me the freedom of expression, translated through both my aesthetic approach to images, but also through the stories I embed on each one. Even though quite often most of the photographic process is a struggle, with endless hours of waiting, frustration with climate, physical suffering and so much time devoted to finding the best light, the truth is that there is always a deep sense of meaning for me in doing this.

Photography makes you infinitely more conscious of the world you live in, as you start seeing all its details and subtleties, not only thinking about how it would look through the viewfinder of your camera but also incorporating the world you see into yourself, crossing the boundaries of your ego and merging with the outside world. Nature becomes a part of you, you become a part of nature, increasing the deep and often forgotten conscience that we are all part of a big “whole”. “