Foggy path

March 26, 2022 in photographs

Galicia, May 2020.

One of the very first images I made after the 2020 lockdown, once we were allowed to go places.

Recognizing emotional attachment to our images

March 26, 2022 in journal

Recently, I listened to an interview where a landscape photographer was expressing their love for the struggle to make an image: the harder the process, the more rewarding it becomes for them.

This photographer was talking about hiking, but I see this happening in photography in many other ways. Another photographer mentioned using a tripod for every shot solely because of the same reason: to make the process slower and more challenging.

Indeed, we require some degree of hardship to stay engaged in the process and be able to see beauty where others miss to see it. But this is tricky, as it presents a danger: our emotional attachment to the images we make.

Because they were hard to make, because we are so proud of them, because they were a challenge we were able to overcome, we see them through a distorted lens.

They might work along with some context -- think a book with text explaining the conditions the image was made in, or a movie where we show all we had to go through.

But they might not work by themselves. A detached audience might not see in them what we see, because they lack the backstory and the emotions we felt while making it.

This discrepancy between our subjective relationship to our own work, and the response of others to it, is a gap we need to be aware of.

Images can and should convey emotions and feelings, but those must be expressed as much as possible in the image itself. This is true even if our photography has an audience of one, us, because time tends to make everything fade away. If our photographs don't speak to anyone else but us now, they might not speak to us either in the future, once all of those feelings are buried deeper within us.

Stillness in the mountains

March 25, 2022 in photographs

Riaño, March 2022.

A long exposure of the lake with some of the mountains around Riaño in the background.

Mountain shapes

March 24, 2022 in photographs

Riaño, March 2022.

Another aerial view from my trip to Riaño, in the Picos de Europa mountains. The incredible atmosphere made for very moody and mysterious images.

Shooting through glass

March 23, 2022 in journal

Shooting through glass is something I want to experiment more with. Embracing the glare, the reflections, the loss of clarity, the overlapping of two worlds.

So far, I've been using windows I find on my daily walks. But I'm seriously starting to consider carrying some kind of glass with me on my photography trips, to use as a sort of filter.

I'll keep you updated.

The bridge and the mountains

March 23, 2022 in photographs

Riaño, March 2022.

An aerial view of the Riaño bridge with the beautiful mountains in the background. From my recent trip to this part of the Picos de Europa.

The diminishing returns of hiking

March 23, 2022 in journal

During my recent trip to Riaño, in the Picos de Europa mountains, I struggled quite a bit with a hike (to the top of Pico Gilbo) I thought I wanted to do.

I found myself making up plenty of excuses: too much haze, bad air quality, it seemed very steep, I had a long drive ahead of me, I wasn't going to make any good images...

In the end, I decided to start the hike and see how far I could go. I wasn't feeling it, and I kept coming up with excuses to head back several times during the hike. But one step at a time, one milestone after another, I made it to the top.

I am so glad I did because, as usual, every single excuse I had made up was just that: an excuse. All the struggle, along with the incredible views, made this one of the best hikes I've ever done.

But, one of the excuses turned out to be true. The one I knew, from experience, was most likely to happen: I didn't make good images during the hike.

Even though some of my best images were made in nature, hard hikes rarely deliver good photographs. At least for me.

I call this the diminishing returns of hiking.

Indeed, the further I go, the harder the hike, the more I push myself physically, the less likely it is that I'll come back with a good image.

We all have limited energy and time. The more you spend them on getting somewhere, the less you have left for your photography.

The more accessible a location is, the more we get to visit it and know it, which means better chances to be there at the right time. I tend to favor shorter hikes for this reason.

But of course, there are plenty of reasons to hike to places like Pico Gilbo beyond making a good image: those experiences can be awe-inspiring and spark something within us, as some of those hikes have done to me in the past. Sometimes it's best to forget about photography and enjoy the view.

Perfect stillness

March 22, 2022 in photographs

Riaño, March 2022.

From my recent trip to beautiful Riaño, in the Picos de Europa mountains.

Pico Gilbo views

March 21, 2022 in photographs

Riaño, March 2022.

And to think I almost didn't want to hike up there! I'm so glad I pushed myself, because the view from the top of Pico Gilbo was one of the best I've ever seen.

Watch the video from Riaño, in the Picos de Europa, here.

Mountain reflection

March 20, 2022 in photographs

Riaño, March 2022.

I had some of the best conditions for photography in Riaño, in the beautiful Picos de Europa mountains.

Once-in-a-lifetime conditions for photography in Riaño (Picos de Europa mountains)

March 20, 2022 in journal

When I plan a photography trip, I usually focus on either relatively close spots, or relatively far places. I tend to ignore everything in between, and man was it a big mistake.

One of those places in between, far enough from home but not too far either, is Riaño. Technically part of the Picos de Europa, but a bit farther south. A beautiful, stunning place, so breathtaking that I can't believe I hadn't visited it sooner.

In any case, I've fixed that mistake now. I spent a few days in the area, and what a time I had. Still low season, I had the whole place for myself. Weather was perfect, not too cold, cloudy, moody. And during the first two days, I even had "calima".

Calima is an atmospheric phenomenon in which dust and sand from the Sahara, in Africa, gets blown all the way here by powerful winds. This happens often in the Canary Islands, just off the African coast, and sometimes in souther Spain. But I had never seen it happening this far north, which was confirmed by the locals as well.

The result? An incredibly eerie and beautiful landscape, looking almost like fog, but not quite. Closer to the smoke of a wildfire, if I were to find something similar. And just like in a wildfire, breathing this stuff is not healthy at all. I had to wear a mask for the first two days of the trip, and I had to put off any hiking to the second half of my travels. Everything worked out perfectly, I took full advantage of the calima, and I got to hike to the top of Pico Gilbo, one of the most breathtaking views I've ever seen.