At some point I got it into my head that to be a "real" photographer, I had to play the part. Going pro was never going to happen, so I went for the cosplay version instead: photo agency trips. If I couldn't make the leap, at least I could sit at the same table as the pros and pretend I belonged.

My first taste was three years ago in Greenland. That's where I met two absolute lunatics who'd vanish at dawn with ten kilos of gear on their backs and show up again at night filthy, grinning, and loaded with shots I couldn't even imagine. They didn't wait around, they didn't ask for permission. They just went. I wanted to be like them, but I just wasn't.

Since then, I racked up more of those glossy agency trips – Africa, the Arctic, whatever promised "bucket list" prestige. Each one torched my budget worse than the last, but I kept signing up. I thought the next one would finally make me legit. (Spoiler: it didn't.)

So this year I went back to Greenland, not for the brochures, but to find out where the hell I actually stand. To see if I was still that person who stayed behind while the maniacs disappeared into the wild, or if I'd finally caught up.

Kangerlussuaq

The chance came early. We landed in Kangerlussuaq, dumped our baggage at the motel, and got herded into a bus for dinner. On the way, the guide pointed at some old military radars along the road: hulking rusted giants on a hill, ghosts from another era. I went with my usual reflex of snapping them through the bus window, blurry glass and reflections be damned. But this time I knew that if I wanted to do it properly, I had to go back. So the next morning I slipped out before breakfast. No chatter, no buses, just me and the radars, and some kick-ass crows. By the time everyone else had finished their coffee, I'd been there and back with photos in hand. The photos weren't much to look at, honestly, but at least I'd done my part.

Later that day we joined the "official" glacier trek. Think forty minutes of buckling harnesses, strapping on spikes, and listening to safety lectures before we even touched the ice. Gorgeous, yeah, but sterilized as hell – adventure with training wheels. And the déjà vu hit hard. I'd done this exact trek three years ago, just with a different batch of people trudging along the same route. Back then it felt exciting, like ticking off a rite of passage, but now it felt more like a rerun: the same glacier, the same trail, the same rhythm of stopping when the guide said stop and moving when the guide said move. Stunning scenery, sure, but it carried that nagging theme I was about to start seeing everywhere on this trip: beautiful, but scripted.

On our way back, we rattled down a busted dirt road in a Soviet UAZ that felt like one pothole away from breaking apart. That's when I saw it: a tiny white rabbit painted on a rock, hiding beside one of Greenland's rare, stunted trees. The bus jolted past, no one else in the group noticed it or cared. But it stuck with me. How could it not, when I grew up on the Matrix? (Yes, technically it was a hare. But "follow the white hare" doesn't quite land, does it?)
That evening we had dinner – a mess in itself, since the location got switched last minute – and all I could think about was the rabbit. The problem was timing: the next morning we had to fly out to Ilulissat. Which left me one window: go that night. Two hours there, two hours back, and maybe five hours of sleep if I was lucky. Again, I was on my own as no one was interested in joining me. So I went.
I worried I'd never find it in the dark, and not without reason, as at one point I did walk right past, adding two pointless kilometers before realizing I'd overshot, helped along by the only landmark I stumbled across: a warning sign about explosives in the area. Not exactly reassuring. But on the way back, there it was: the faint white shape against the rock. I shot it, grinned like an idiot, and finally crawled into bed wrecked but satisfied. And this time, the photos actually turned out pretty nice.

Ilulissat

When we reached Ilulissat, the tone of the trip shifted again. This was the postcard Greenland – the part that shows up in brochures. The agency lined up its greatest hits: scenic flights, cruise ships to the glacier, zodiac runs, kayaking between icebergs. All polished, all spectacular, and all carrying price tags that made my wallet weep. I picked two – zodiacs and kayaking – figuring that was plenty, and we started our days with some lightweight hikes. In my establishing pattern for getting fixated on stuff that doesn't matter to anyone else, I noticed a phantom trail on my GPS app that didn't exist on local maps. It seemed to cross the entire peninsula to a hut at the far end. I knew instantly: that was mine. Not today, but soon.
The day ended at the Greenlandic dog farms – the Arctic's dirty little corner dressed up as "tradition". Free-roaming puppies stumble around in the dirt while their parents rot on chains, tethered to poles like broken tools, howling at every stranger for scraps of attention. The signs told us not to touch them, to remember they're "working dogs". As if a sledding harness cancels out a lifetime of neglect. I ignored the signs and played with the pups for a long while. Some rules deserve to be broken.

The day after we hit Disko Bay – peak aurora activity, peak let-down. The sky just bricked over, solid steel, not a single ion through. The group split to chase town shots and waterfalls. I went for the nearest mountain instead: 5 km, 750 meters up, five hours before dinner. And that's where I hit my first wall. I didn't make the summit. There was just not enough time. But it was cool anyway: I saw some bootleg waterfalls not mentioned by the guides, and a crashed sled on a rock. Zero regrets. My guide said the trail made no sense, which made it even sweeter. And best of all – no humans, no chatter, no humblebrags about not being able to afford a third underwater camera dome.

The morning after it was time to go back to Ilulissat. Once again, I was watching the group tick boxes, going on their cruise ship. I had time for myself. I grabbed half a liter of water, a chocolate bar, and went hunting for the hut I'd seen on my GPS. At first the trail played nice – gentle slope, even pink markers that didn't show on any map. But then the paint ran out, and the terrain went feral: mossy bogs, ankle-snapping boulder fields, tracks that started confidently and then just laughed in your face by vanishing into nowhere. After a while, I was outright pissed. This wasn't epic or cinematic; it was just a boring mess of rocks that slowed me down and mocked every step. Dry riverbeds, pointless little lakes, repeat ad nauseam. But here's the thing: underneath the irritation, I knew this was what I came for. This was my way of catching up to those two madmen from three years back, this was me finally chasing their ghosts.
Eventually I made it to the hut. Too beat to push further to the glacier terminus across the shore, but it didn't matter anymore. I sat. Ate my chocolate, drank my water. Let the silence have me. And then I turned back. I won.

Then came water day, my way of belonging with the group, doing the prestigious activities that get you REAL photos and not just mud over your boots. First the kayak – and it started cursed. I managed to dunk my camera into saltwater right when I entered. Goodbye warranty, hello service bill. They stuck me in a tandem with a guide after that, so much for solitude. Still, once we were moving, I caught the kick: slicing between icebergs, spray in my face, legs burning to keep pace. For a few minutes it was raw, almost feral – the kind of thing that makes you forget you're technically part of a tour group.
After that came the zodiacs, which were more predictable: engines growling, spray everywhere, bouncing along glacier walls. The kind of thing you'd expect when someone says "zodiac trip in Greenland". Much more solid shots thanks to the sun gracing us with a whopping 5 minutes of golden hour.

The following day it was time to go home.

Realization

Somewhere between annoyance and stubbornness, I realized I wasn't chasing landscapes at all. Even when the trail was nothing but rocks, what mattered was proving I could keep going. By the time I got home, the photos were almost irrelevant – the satisfaction came from dragging myself through.

That’s when it clicked. The zodiac rides, the safaris, the dinner-table one-upping between CEOs and surgeons ("Patagonia last year?" "Antarctica next month!"). A couple of these trips and you start to see the pattern: the same tours, the same small talk, the same glossy postcard moments, only with different backdrops, and the same hollow aftertaste.

I thought this trip would finally let me feel like a “real” photographer now that I could keep pace. Instead, it made me see how easily I'd slipped into being just another tourist – only with the word "photography" stamped on the brochure to make it sound serious. I drowned my camera in seawater, cursed at kilometers of rocks, and came back aurora-less. Hardly the stuff of portfolios. And yet these oddities – the radar at dawn, the unknown mural, the hut at the end of a trail no one wanted – are what I treasure most.

So maybe not belonging is the point. Belonging here means buying the script. I’d rather tear it up and take the scraps no one else even noticed. In the end, all I brought back was a rabbit on a rock and a hand-picked bag of Labrador tea leaves, and that's enough.