Travel photography - Bikepacking through Slovenia

Through Slovenia by bike

In June, we (Melissa and Jonas) went on a bikepacking tour through Slovenia. 2 weeks on the road on gravel bikes only. Of course, the memories were extremely important to us, especially because of our photo book, which we wanted to create afterwards. But because you have to think carefully about every gram when bikepacking, you also need lightweight equipment for photography. Our Fujifilm X-T20 (successor to the X-T30II) with the 23mm f/2.0 was the perfect choice for us. You can find out about the challenges and exciting experiences we had on this trip in this blog post.

The somewhat different travel (photography)

Travel photography. A term that probably everyone can relate to. The term is flexible and includes many possibilities. City breaks, landscapes, nature, culture, sights, all the experiences you have on your trip. Depending on how you travel determines the equipment and therefore the results of your photographs. As I said, weight was the most important factor for us. Our focus was on the moments, we didn't want perfect pictures of places that had been photographed umpteen times before. We were more interested in capturing many different perspectives, showing unpleasant moments, in other words, what we experienced. Also a lesson from the year before. Our pictures were pretty much the same, as we mostly took pictures from our bikes and didn't really take the time to think about what was important to us. You only learn something like that by trying it out. Especially in photo books, you want to show lots of different moments and not just the perfect pictures that don't tell you anything about the trip itself. This is also a tip from us: before the trip, decide exactly what you want to photograph and what look you want in the pictures. This will then determine your choice of lens and the focus you put on your pictures. If we were to buy a new camera right now, it would definitely be the Fujifilm X-100V. It's small, light and has a built-in Lens. Perfect for our kind of traveling!

Bikepacking - what makes it so special?

Traveling is a completely different experience on a bike. For me, it's a completely different experience to ride through the countryside either in a closed vehicle or on a bike, where you can experience smells, heat or cold, sounds and your own body. Above all, you get to places that you couldn't have reached by car, for example. Sometimes you're alone in a forest, then you're faced with an incredible panorama or ride far away from civilization along hiking trails where it's just you, your bike and a few alpine cows.
In my opinion, you perceive nature much more intensely and this also results in the angles in the pictures. Sunsets, quiet forests, the thunderstorm over the lake, the chapel on the mountain, a little bird in the backlight that wakes you up. What I also love is the spontaneity. You can go almost anywhere because you always have all the things you need to live with you. Are we going to the sea today? Maybe. stay 3-4 days longer in the mountains? Why not?

Our highlights from Slovenia:

• Lake Bled
• Lake Bohinj
• Ljubljana
• Triglav National Park
• Karawanken (mountain range in the north)
• Soca Valley

To show you where we actually went, here is a brief description of our route.

In total it was: 14 days, 61.6 hours riding time, 894km, 14,200 vertical meters

More about Melissa Stemmer

More articles in the blog