ALL THE TIME IN HELL
BY HUGO KORHONEN
INSPIRED BY XCOPY’S ALL TIME HIGH IN CITY
DON’T MISS THE ARTWORK PRESENTATION
Why did I make this piece?
I believe it was David Goggins (who inspires me tons) whom I heard this quote for the first time;
“If you’re going through hell, why stop there?"
That hit me hard and remains as one of my favourite quotes to this day. That quote is the thing I built this piece around.
I wanted to make a piece that shows a person going through hell, in a literal hell, that’s why the red colour. I wanted to make the piece seem like it that could be what the hell truly looks like - and heck maybe that’s how the world looks to some people when they’re going through tough times.
I believe we all sometimes go through hell and the hard thing with that is that you might not see how to get out of it. But this gets us back to Goggins’ quote; you just must keep going. Why would you stop going and choose to stay in hell?
I wish this piece inspires people the same amount it inspires me and keeps people going through their toughest times.
But how was this piece made?
This piece was made in Finnish Lapland, Salla. It was my first time visiting and I immediately fell in love with the photo opportunities there.
I had book marked quite a few spots but mostly the plans I had was to hike the same fells over and over again until I get the shots I want - and the conditions I want. Unfortunately we weren’t able to get a lot of sunlight — in fact only on this one day we got some - but it was some gorgeous light then.
It was our 3rd hike to the fell (we still ended up summiting it once more during the night). The forecast wasn’t looking great for sunset - it was cloudy. But I knew it could be sunny still on top of the fells if we were lucky… and well… we were.
The views weren’t visible for long but the sunlight was still shining through the clouds. I asked my dad to go to a certain position and whilst he was walking there - I saw this scene unfolding before my eyes…
The leading lines, consistent patterns, rules of thirds… it seemed perfect. I knew I had to take the shot even though I had no plans whatsoever to take a shot like that. I took the shot. It took me a few seconds. I checked the photos, and I knew I had got it.
I was waiting for months to edit this piece and then I stumbled upon VivianeG’s XCOPY All Time High in the City interpretation “All Time High in the Lake”.
I had worked with a certain project earlier this year (2023) and made couple art pieces but unfortunately they both got rejected.
The founders were IN LOVE with the colours though, I used reds and blacks and they told me that they reminded them of the XCOPY’s piece.
Once seeing Viviane’s piece it all came together for me. I saw the piece in my mind and immediately wrote the idea down and asap went to try it out on my computer how it’d look… and it was amazing.
After completing other drops, it was time to finish this piece and I’m so proud of it. It took so much effort to make and it is a different kind of a take of XCOPY’s piece and a new like piece from me as I’ve never dropped anything with these colours.
I’m super proud of the piece and believe this is one of my best pieces to date.
To watch a visual journey of the hike, make sure to watch the “artwork presentation” from below if you haven’t yet.
The destination where I asked my dad to go to
THE ARTWORK PRESENTATION/VISUAL JOURNEY
THE EDITING
The editing process was fun but also difficult as I wanted to keep the red sun/”planet” visible through the mist to an extent and not have it greatly overexposed - and I wanted the piece be bright to an extent too that the viewer can make sense what’s going on in the shot.
This took me months of going back and forth with the edit. This is the RAW file vs the finished piece.
RAW IMAGE
FINISHED PIECE
ALL THE TIME IN HELL
“If you’re going through hell, why stop there?”
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