My dad used to tell me that the only thing that is above all human power and overcomes almost all obstacles in life even that one of death - survival instinct is the feeling of “thelisis” (thélō ="to strongly desire, strong wish of achieving smth”).
So my questions were too many “what if this, that” and still the answer was the one and the very same for each of my questions… “when the time will come that your thelisi for something will knock your heart, that moment you know you can do it and you will see that you won’t have any hesitation to go for it”.
So here I am, having walked almost 4kms on the seaside (sand) climbed up a 6meter rock and standing on top of it to see whats on the other side I see in the distance an amazing formation of rocks (I will be posting photos of it in the next days). I see behind me the distance, I see the rock formation ahead of me and I calculate is about another 3kms away with a middle rock formation that needs to be climbed over to reach the destination. So I m thinking… climbing down meters of razor sharp rocks, walk 2kms, climb up and down another rock formation and walk about another 1-1,5 kms to reach the rock formation my eye caught, climb up there, get the shot (1-3 max in long exposure of 3-5mins each), pack, get down from there and walk back all this to reach where I m standing, and then climb down to walk 4kms back to car… its about 50mins if all goes well, if the sea doesn’t rise as is afternoon and no waves get higher to cut any part of my route… and if nothing is wrong on my path through the rocks…
I have just 60mins max before is dark…. I know I DO want to get this shot of those rocks…but I do am alone and in a place with no cellular reception and I do have just half a bottle of water… I do also know that I not all my days are as good as this and I know I can’t come back for sure for another good 6months here… So whats the deal?
This is the point where my Thelisis kicked in… I look once back and once forward… and so I did my first step, that moment I knew it I knew it that is was my thelisis to get that shot that took that risky decision for me…
I just remembered my childhood conversation with my dad…. Yes its this moment dad that I do know that this feeling overcame all my reasonable and orthological calculations and “pushed” me to move…
On the way back, the sky was already angry and the sea started to getting warmed up and the tide about to kick in.. so my path backwards would be kinda tricky to risky.. and yet I did have some good 11 minutes to make it to the next seashore behind the 6m rock I was standing initially, when I saw these 3 rocks in a very calm safe gulfy-look protected side … so I threw down my backpack and zipped out fast, set up my tripod my filter and gave it my last 5minutes I needed and inside me I wasn’t even contemplating whether this would be a nice frame or not, I knew it would be and didn’t even look at this single frame till I got to my car!
Thelisis… never fails you….
Till we meed Dad...