23Tom Welsch, a London-based documentary film maker and the man behind Get Deluxe Films, celebrated this year’s New Year far away from home. Together with his friend Dan, he spent a week travelling across Alaska. He did so because he felt a growing desire to disconnect from technology and work towards the end of 2016. But he still took along his Sony Alpha A7SII.
“I realized I should probably take a camera with me, but didn’t want to be inconvenienced by all the gear I usually travel with – FS7, 16mm kit, etc. – so just took the basics.”
— Tom Welsch
© Tom Welsh / Get Deluxe Films
© Tom Welsh / Get Deluxe Films
© Tom Welsh / Get Deluxe Films
Welsch documented his week into the wild in an epic 3-minute piece of cinematography, titled “The Problem of the Wilderness.” He got that verse in a 1930 essay by Bob Marshall he found in the cabin he and Dan were staying in, and found it to resonate a lot with the journey.
“It is well to reflect that the wilderness furnishes perhaps the best opportunity for pure aesthetic enjoyment. This requires that beauty be observed as a unity, and that for the brief duration of any pure aesthetic experience the cognition of the observed object must completely fill the spectator’s cosmos. There can be no extraneous thoughts—no question about the creator of the phenomenon, its structure, what it resembles or what vanity in the beholder it gratifies.”
— Bob Marshall, 1930
On Facebook, Welsch also concluded: “Everything we saw miniaturized everything we’d seen before.” Looking at his imagery, we surely understand why.
© Tom Welsh / Get Deluxe Films
© Tom Welsh / Get Deluxe Films
© Tom Welsh / Get Deluxe Films
© Tom Welsh / Get Deluxe Films
© Tom Welsh / Get Deluxe Films
Feeling inspired or impressed? Show Tom Welsch some love on Instagram, Facebook, Vimeo and Twitter, and be sure to pay a visit to his website.
