2020: Dolomites, sustainable living and new years resolutions

A photographer on the Dolomites and thoughts about the year 2020

I am an elopement photographer for a reason: I love nature and I love to photograph true, raw feelings in amazing places. Because of my passion, I spent the very first day of the year on the Dolomites, the closest mountains to Venice. I feel like everybody knows the Dolomites, now: they are often associated with fancy and adventurous weddings, places to visit once in a lifetime (Lake Braies, Tre Cime di Lavaredo, Cortina d’Ampezzo just to name a few unmissable locations), and of course a mecca for the elopement and travel photographer.

To me, the Dolomites are just home. A place I would visit every month, each season for different activities. The Winter sledding with my sister and childhood friends, then trying to learn how to ski ( I never managed to learn properly). In the Fall we would go picking up mushrooms and in the Summer blueberries. Spring was perfect for long walks and occasional hikes.

I really love nature and silence. January is my favorite month: the snow adds something magical to an always magical place. A day walking and rolling in the snow makes all worries go away. For me, 2019 was a year of huge changes and 2020 is going to be a total revolution.

Sustainable living: an everyday challenge

I just bought my first house and I did it with a very clear conscience of what it means to live and use the world in a way that is environmentally responsible. I changed at least 30 houses since I moved out of my parent’s house, and I have seen it all. In the last few years I researched a lot on what possibilities the world offers right now, for sustainable living. I photographed and interviewed people living in communes in Italy. I researched online about building a sustainable and self sufficient house, but it is a lot of work and also quite complicated if you want to live close to a city.

I have always been intrigued by the #vanlife movement and I think it works amazingly in some areas of the world, especially in the USA, where nomad life has always been part of the culture. Europe has a different history, and a different climate, so after careful consideration I decided the best for me was to live in a tiny house, with my boyfriend, close to my family and my first love: Venice.

This allows me to consume very little resources to maintain the house. I use public transport and my bike everyday. Since the house is tiny, I will use a small fraction of my life to pay it, so that the rest of my life can be spent doing what I love. I also decided to cut back on unnecessary plane rides, but I’ll tell you more about this, because it is a very important concern for a lot of environmentally conscious elopement photographers.

Back to these amazing mountains. Being in the Dolomites makes me wonder about climate change and how to contribute. We all have seen how glaciers have been receding these past few decades and I feel like there is more and more need to get closer to nature, get to know its cycles and the signals it is giving us.
So my personal new year’s resolution is to get closer to nature. What’s yours?