Marsel van Oosten
The Fist of Resistance
With the global rise of tourism and photographers, population growth, plane tickets that are getting cheaper and cheaper, and social media that turn everything into a pandemic, the pressure on the earth’s wild places will continue to increase. There is no reason to expect that this will change anytime soon, so more and more people will travel around the globe to visit the many wilderness areas, and those will inevitably suffer as a consequence. We talked about different solutions (thank you for taking part in the discussion!), some more realistic than others, and I think it made a lot of us more aware - we need to think carefully about our actions and act in the best interest of our natural world. And when I say this, I mean this in a realistic way - no need to become a fundamentalist!
Some people say that there are no wild places left, but luckily that’s far from true. There are still many unexplored and truly wild places left on our planet, it just takes some extra effort to find them. This image is an example of that.
I photographed this massive rock fist somewhere in Libya. I spotted it with my binoculars from very far away, but we couldn’t get there with our 4x4 - the terrain was too rocky. And even if we hiked there, chances were that we couldn’t get all the way up to the top. We then spent hours walking around this elevated plateau, trying to find a way up. An hour before sunrise we finally found a way and hiked up. We arrived at the top at sunset and were amazed by what we saw.
If this giant rock fist had been located in Ohio, many thousands of tourists would visit it each year, Ohio would be called the Fist State, and on all license plates you would see little stickers with the fist. Luckily, it’s not in Ohio.
It is safe for me to say that you have never seen this fist, because this is the only photograph of it. I know exactly where it is, because I geotagged it. But I’m not sharing the location, because I’m planning to go back and enjoy the quiet, unspoiled wilderness again. Selfish? Maybe, but it helps.
Marsel
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©2018 Marsel van Oosten, All Rights Reserved. This image is not available for use on websites, blogs or other media without the explicit written permission of the photographer.
The Fist of Resistance
With the global rise of tourism and photographers, population growth, plane tickets that are getting cheaper and cheaper, and social media that turn everything into a pandemic, the pressure on the earth’s wild places will continue to increase. There is no reason to expect that this will change anytime soon, so more and more people will travel around the globe to visit the many wilderness areas, and those will inevitably suffer as a consequence. We talked about different solutions (thank you for taking part in the discussion!), some more realistic than others, and I think it made a lot of us more aware - we need to think carefully about our actions and act in the best interest of our natural world. And when I say this, I mean this in a realistic way - no need to become a fundamentalist!
Some people say that there are no wild places left, but luckily that’s far from true. There are still many unexplored and truly wild places left on our planet, it just takes some extra effort to find them. This image is an example of that.
I photographed this massive rock fist somewhere in Libya. I spotted it with my binoculars from very far away, but we couldn’t get there with our 4x4 - the terrain was too rocky. And even if we hiked there, chances were that we couldn’t get all the way up to the top. We then spent hours walking around this elevated plateau, trying to find a way up. An hour before sunrise we finally found a way and hiked up. We arrived at the top at sunset and were amazed by what we saw.
If this giant rock fist had been located in Ohio, many thousands of tourists would visit it each year, Ohio would be called the Fist State, and on all license plates you would see little stickers with the fist. Luckily, it’s not in Ohio.
It is safe for me to say that you have never seen this fist, because this is the only photograph of it. I know exactly where it is, because I geotagged it. But I’m not sharing the location, because I’m planning to go back and enjoy the quiet, unspoiled wilderness again. Selfish? Maybe, but it helps.
Marsel
WEBSITE | FACEBOOK | INSTAGRAM
©2018 Marsel van Oosten, All Rights Reserved. This image is not available for use on websites, blogs or other media without the explicit written permission of the photographer.