First of all, hi! This is my first story here in Steemit so I'd like to introduce myself.
I'm a boy from Italy, I'm 22 and I'm a web developer. I have a passion for photography that maturated since when I was very young and my dad and I went walking to the mountains and he used to shoot photos, while I started learning.

And this is what I'm going to talk about: Photography.

I think that it is one of the finest arts and one of the most difficult too.
If you want to tell a story you can write a book and you can write hundreds of pages; you can record a movie and you have plenty of minutes to develop it; you can paint and make it exactly as you've imagined..
But with photography you must catch the moment, the right point of view, the right lighting, you have to be in the right place at the right time, you have to stick to what's around you.

I'm not saying photography is better or harder, I'm just saying I find it fascinating and that it caught me more than the other arts.

I'm going to tell some of the adventures I've had the luck to live, the places I've seen and if I find the right words, the emotion I've felt.

So, let's get back to the story:
After some years, when I was sixteen, I got my own camera so I could shoot photos on my own, and so I did!
My first "real" trip was in the USA, in 2014, with some school friends, where I've seen amazing places, deserts that doesn't end, skies at night with so many stars that I couldn't count them and landscapes that made me stop breathing..

We've seen some sand dunes in the middle of the death valley and while we were walking a military plane flew just over our heads! I'll never forget that noise, that roar coming to us, the sand that started flying all around; it'll never happen again!

But the sunsets and the nights in the desert are the part that hit me the most: the colors, the silence, the infinite spaces around us. It's something I wasn't used to.
I don't live in a big or chaotic city but still it's been a completely new feeling for me to be in a desert. At night. With billions of stars blinking on top of me. No: it's something you'll never get used to. It amazes you every time!

We've also visited Las Vegas, a light in the night! How many colors are there?? It's definitely worth it being here.

But I think the one photo that made me feel like a "real" photographer, for the first time, was this one:

I felt like I caught the perfect shot and I fell in love with photography, America and those never ending deserts...

I've travelled quite a lot after then, maybe not far away from home, but a lot.
I've had the occasion to catch many other great photos, like this one while I was in Monte Isola (Italy), for those of you who don't know where it is, it's where Christo built the famous floating piers this year (2016).

It's a simple photo but I imagine that it can hold a very deep meaning. It's a metaphor: you have to be like a knot, strong even in the hardest days. It must hold a boat and prevent it from sinking or floating it away from the coast. And that's how we should be as well: always strong and never let the sea bring you away.

Some time later I went on holiday with my girlfriend, to the Alps mountains here in Italy. We've walked a lot and saw lots of beautiful places like the lake of Braies, which is quite famous and you've probably already seen something of it

It was such an adventure to walk on top of the icy lake, with the fear of the ice breaking under our feet!

The lakes have always been one of my favorite subjects, they have something that make them so unique. I can't find what exactly, but they have it.

And at the sunset they're even better! This is the Lake of Santa Croce, near where I live

And this one is the Lake of Sorapis, with its characteristic color which makes it almost look "fake". It doesn't really look like water, it looks like someone just painted it! This color is given by composition of the rocks on the bottom of the lake, they just give the water this great color. It takes two hours to walk to the lake, you have to climb up the mountain, but it is worth every second!

And then there's the Lake of Barcis, another one near where I live, and another beautiful landscape from here! My girlfriend and I walked all around the lake, until the sun went down...

... and then we stayed some more just to stare how amazing it was by night.
The silence, the water slowly flowing, the far rumors of the village festival on the other side of the lake...

We just shut our eyes and rested for some more time before going back to home..

There are many other places I've visited but... That's another story!

I hope you'll enjoy my story and I really hope I've been able to transmit my feelings to you so that you've felt them too while reading.

Luca

PS:
If you'd like to see all my photos feel free to check them at 500px or Instagram.
Please don't consider this as self-advertising, it's not supposed to be so, it's just a way to share my photos with you.