"What a hell am I doing here?..." - My own thoughts… Spread over time there are lots of situations when this comes to my mind…

I guess the reasons that take us to do whatever we do can be so diverse as just doing because everybody does or just doing because it makes us feel good disregarding of what others think… The strange thing for me is that although I never take to much time thinking about what lead me to do something, there are lots of situations when I'm already into extreme situations wondering about what took me there…

Two months ago, I was in Montesinho Natural Park in the north of Portugal trying to create some fall pictures. Along with the previous this fall wasn't very rainy. This meant that mushrooms where not easy to find and rivers had even less water than they did last year… After my first day along one of my favorite valleys I looked up and saw some hints that there would be a nice color display at sunset, so I drove uphill looking for a nice spot and after finding one I only stopped shooting when there was no longer light in the sky and my hands where freezing to the point I could not feel them anymore…

After packing all my gear and getting back into the car I stayed there in silence for some time wondering what would lead someone to be alone in a dirt road at 1400m with sub zero temperatures with the single purpose of enjoying the sunset… Being in this place at the north east extreme of the country looking down south reminded me that in several months I'll be in this region again, looking to the other extreme, this time not with photography as the main purpose but for starting the Transportugal (1000 km of mountain biking in 8 days, traversing the country from one extreme to the other)...


Again… Why did I get into do this?... Well I did not think much… At 1'st it looked like a good idea... Now I feel that having some kind of impossible mission in the horizon seams to give me energy for doing all sorts of positive things...

Some people ask me if I gave up photography in favor of mountain biking… It's true I'm dedicating less time photographing actively due to the time I spend with physical training… Still whatever I'm doing, I'm breathing the world around me and whatever the outcome may be the passion is certainly the same...