Bored Panda reached out to Daniel Ernst and asked him some questions regarding his work. First, we wanted to know what initially drew him to photography and filmmaking, especially focusing on outdoor adventure and nature. We found out: “It began in 2014 when I moved to New Zealand for one year. I wanted to share my daily life with my family and started to write a blog and upload my images to Instagram. Especially the South Island of New Zealand is an outdoor playground and somehow this shaped my photography a lot in these days. I spent every free minute I had outside, camping, hiking and enjoying the outdoors. Even almost 10 years later I still have the same mindset and lifestyle. Being in incredible landscapes always makes me feel humble and appreciate the natural wonders - and this is what I try to convey with my images and videos. I got into filmmaking when I met my wife Natascha who is also a passionate photographer. Since we started working together on projects, it allowed me to get try out new things and get into filmmaking. I love that I can convey even more emotions with videos and share how things happened beyond the ‘perfect picture.’”
The photographer kindly shared with us a memorable moment from his photography expedition in the great outdoors: “It’s hard to bring it down to one certain moment, but in 2022 we decided to spend most of the year in Scandinavia and this experience was truly unbelievable. We hiked a lot, spent most of our nights outside, and enjoyed the vast and lonely landscape of the North. At this time we also decided to film this year and Call of the North came together (here’s the playlist) and ended in a 5-episode series showing this journey in the style of a cinematic vlog. During this time, way too many memorable things happened than there is time to write them down, but this year also taught us a lot about running our business from our mobile office and also improving in terms of filmmaking and photography.”
Asked about some of the biggest challenges he faces when working in extreme outdoor conditions, the photographer mentioned: “I feel most alive when rain or snow is hitting my face in wind gusts that makes it hard to stand against - I’m bit strange in this, but I enjoy the uncomfortable moments to the fullest. So I don’t need to overcome them luckily and the thrill of getting footage and images when most people stay inside pushes me even further. Don’t get me wrong, I also like sunshine and a calm, relaxing day in the tent, but this is just not as special! Of course, I always need to prepare for those ‘bad’ situations - I remember this winter when we were out and the temperature dropped below -30°C with wind chill and things got really extreme. But at the same time, the adrenaline and thrill to get up to the mountain to shoot the beautiful landscape in the polar night was enough to keep us warm.”
We were also wondering if Daniel could tell us more about the process of selecting and planning locations for his outdoor shoots, particularly when seeking out untamed beauty. We learned that: “I find most places by accidentally walking or driving past them. I see a sign that looks unfamiliar and I google it and if it’s something interesting, I go down the rabbit hole followed by spending hours on Google Earth, topographic maps, and trying to find any resources on the internet. Most places only work in certain seasons or weather conditions, so I usually plan to come back to one place at least 2 to 3 times until I get the perfect moment. But before that, I also enjoy the nonperfect moments a lot.”
Lastly, the photographer shared with us some more details about his aspirations and projects he’s excited to pursue in the realm of commercial photography and filmmaking: “It’s always hard to talk about future projects where I am allowed to talk freely but there are some projects coming up that really excite me, since they will be kind of something new to me and there’s a big learning curve for me ahead. But one thing we will focus more on is to have group events such as our sailing expedition to Greenland in the coming years. We both found so much joy in teaching, guiding and getting to know people who share the same interest.”
