On the Way to the Centre of the Earth
- Bánhalmi Norbert
- 4 days ago
- 4 min read
Updated: 10 hours ago
• Professional photography article •
Imagine setting off into total darkness through a narrow opening deep beneath the surface.
Everything is unfamiliar.
Every touch, smell and sound raises a new question.
You have no idea what you will meet if you venture farther inside.
Will you get stuck?
Fall into a shaft like in a film?
You do have a headlamp.
But it reveals only enough to answer one question while creating another.
Was that a spider — or a bat?
The strange rumble of wind moving through the cave keeps you alert until, eventually, you get used to it.
For Ági, Fanni and Ricsi — my guides in the Pilis — this is the environment in which they truly switch off.
They are explorers and researchers at the same time.
Let's be honest:
Crawling through a narrow, dark cave is definitely outside most people's comfort zone.
And still I wanted to join them on this unusual adventure.
Why?
Our story began at the Medves Photography Marathon, where I met Ágnes Berentés — geologist, geographer and cave photographer.
We were preparing for a night-time test of the Olympus E-M1 Mark III with Olympus ambassador Zoltán Nagy, who was demonstrating the camera's star-photography function.
While we were exploring the secrets of astrophotography, Ági began talking about her work.
I was completely fascinated by the world in which she and her colleagues move.
After hearing about the extraordinary adventures and sights, I immediately asked whether she might be interested in taking one of our top models underground for a shoot.
Around a month later, the first test photographs were created in a cave beneath Buda.
One week after that first test, I found myself following three cavers with enormous backpacks through the Pilis.
To prepare me, Ági sent me a film to watch.
I have enormous respect for them.
But I have to admit the film did not exactly awaken my inner adventurer. :)
And yet here I was.
Something about this world was pulling me in.
My biggest fear was probably the so-called squeezes — the very narrow passages.
I tried to push those thoughts aside and focus only on the beauty of the environment.
Ági had carefully packed an E-M1 Mark III with an M.Zuiko 7–14 PRO and an M.Zuiko 60mm f/2.8 Macro.
Normally, she worked with a DSLR and system flashes.
I knew the Olympus system would require a completely different way of thinking for her.
My goal was not to convince her to change systems.
I am a switcher myself.
I understand that the fastest creative workflow is often built on the routine and experience a photographer has developed over years with their own equipment.
We reached the cave entrance.
It was a very small door.
My first thought was simple:
There is no way I am fitting through that.
Never mind going farther.
The team was incredibly professional and immediately tried to calm me.
There was no reason to panic, they said.
In fact, this cave was so easy it was almost suitable for children.
Oddly enough, that did not make me feel much better.
Still, I tried not to let fear take over.
The door opened.
Behind it was a genuinely narrow gap.
No turning back now.
Time to go.
Ági entered first.
I followed her.
Almost immediately, she enthusiastically pointed out the beautiful cave orb-weaver spiders sitting in the cracks.
There were even spider eggs, which, as though scripted for maximum effect, began moving in the airflow.
I tried not to be too disgusted.
I reminded myself that I was the visitor here.
After the first turn, curiosity started pulling me forward.
Below you can see a cave spider photographed under UV light by nature photographer Ferenc Spéder, another species that can be found near cave entrances.
Considering that I had thought I would not even fit through the entrance, I was now fairly deep inside.
Around five metres, at least.
We reached a larger chamber.
And my first real thought was:
Oh my God.
I did it.
I was inside a cave.
And suddenly I had hundreds of questions.
How does a cave exploration actually happen?
What drives these people?
What kinds of creatures live here besides spiders and bats?
And how does cave photography work?
Believe it or not, mosquitoes and spiders often overwinter in caves and particularly like the entrance areas.
If you stare at one spot long enough, you begin to notice tiny white mites.
Nature does not leave bats alone either.
They have their own parasites — so-called bat ticks.
And the list does not end there.
Many other animals visit caves to overwinter or feed, including snakes, foxes and various small and large mammals.
Some creatures, however, live exclusively underground and never venture to the surface.
They often have no colour and little or no vision because they simply do not need either.
But back to cave photography.
Whenever possible, Ági first walks through a cave wearing only a headlamp, maps the space mentally, then starts photographing on the way back.
She controls her flashes remotely and relies on her fellow cavers to place them in extraordinary locations.
Her colleagues are capable of crawling into almost impossible positions or hanging from ropes hundreds of metres above the depths while manually directing a flash to create the best possible image.
For an ordinary mortal, the world is both fascinating and frightening.
That is also why creating a single photograph can take hours depending on the complexity of the location.
In our case, more than an hour passed before the image finally came together.
After years of DSLR work, Olympus represented a new world for Ági.
Almost like entering an undiscovered cave where every metre reveals a new part of the environment.
In the video below, we tried to summarise the entire day in 90 seconds.
And what did the final photographs look like?
They completely impressed me.
I came away convinced that we should continue the experiment.
Next time I would like to invite our ambassador Zsolt Dékány, who knows the capabilities of the E-M1 Mark III the way Lewis Hamilton knows his own racing car.
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