Galicia, October 2021.
These are the images I love making the most. Mundane scenes I walked by hundreds if not thousands of times, until one day, I see something.
I made many more images on this foggy morning, watch the video here.
Galicia, October 2021.
A pile of haystacks waiting to be collected. An image I made during a morning walk in the fog, watch the video here.
Another foggy morning of photography around town. I'm running out of places, but I still managed to find a few new and cool spots.
Mallos de Riglos, Aragon, October 2021.
Humans vs Nature: a church at the feet of a huge rocky wall.
Beautiful Cannon Beach, a good example of what the Oregon Coast has to offer. Originally named, Cannon Beach is the Image of the Month of July.
As a not-so-fun fact, I dropped my litte RX100VII in the ocean while making this image - a rogue wave took it forever. Not a bad place to die, though.
Remember: there are two sizes to choose from, 6x6 and 8x8 (inches). In both cases, the matt and frame are 12x12 (this means a bigger margin for the 6x6 print).
Shipping is free to the US now. International shipping is a flat rate of $19.95.
A new image will be released every month and offered at a reduced price during that time. After 30 days, it will be sold at full price. They will never be on sale at any time in the future, the rate during the first month will be the lowest, ever.
You can find more information about how I create my images and all the details about pricing on The Art and Craft behind my prints.
Shooting wide open is a big no-no in some styles of photography, like landscape photography. But it is a huge yes-yes in my photography. Let me tell you why.
Galicia, October 2021.
Another of those trees I stumble upon during my morning walks. I will never get tired of making images of them!
On my way back from a 3 day trip to Lake Michigan, I stopped by Silver Lake State Park. Just to check it out. There was a lighthouse and a beach, so I figured it was worth a quick visit.
What I found there was little piece of heaven (for photographers, at least): a beautiful foggy strecth of the lake, a cool lighthouse, and some sticks from old piers in the water. Just perfect.
Galicia, October 2021.
I have a love / hate relationship with drones. On one hand, they are loud, they take space in your camera bag, and... well, they fall from the sky.
On the other hand: they are flying cameras. Literally. When you are trying to compose an image with a drone, the sky is your limit! You can go forward, backwards, up, down... (just watch out for trees and powerlines!).
Getting a good image with them is not that easy, though. Over the years, I've only made a handful of images I really love. This one might be one of them, only time will tell.
It was a pretty hot morning back in May 2019. I was visiting Phoenix for the first time, and while I focused more on the landscapes (like Saugaro National Park, where I made one of my images of the month), I also photographed the city. I found some cool spots, but this one was something else. I was definitely not expecting to find a former governor's pyramid tomb on a hill.
I saw the image right away, and I even played with it for a bit placing some of the planes that were taking off and landing in the background. But the original composition and idea was the right one, after all.
"Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings” - Stephen King
As photographers, we need to know if our images make us feel the way we feel because of their composition, light, subject, atmosphere... or if it's our memories of making them that are responsible instead. Because if it's the latter, if it's the context only us have as the makers, as the ones who were there, then no one else is going to feel the same way towards those images.
Lago di Garda, Italy, November 2019.
I discovered this place by accident. I was supposed to spend a week in a small town in Austria, but some early snow made me change my plans. I thought it'd be better if I headed south to Italy a few days earlier than anticipated, to avoid driving on rough roads with my car and its summer tires. I had to find a place, though, and that's when I saw this lake just at the other side of the border.
I didn't really know much about it, but that was about to change... quickly. The lake was hidden most of the time while I was approaching it, but all of a sudden, it revealed itself. What a beautiful sight that was! I couldn't believe I had stumbled upon a place like that. How could have I missed this?
I took advantage of that week at the shore of Lago di Garda, and made plenty of images that are still today some of my favorites ever.
I've never been so happy about a sudden change of plans like this time.
A few weeks ago, I had a very nice conversation with the folks from Cómete el Film, and this is the result. One of the very few times I got to talk about my work in Spanish, so it was a very welcomed change.
Hace unas semanas, tuve una conversación muy interesante con los chicos de Cómete el Film, y este es el resultado. Una de las pocas veces que he hablado sobre mi trabajo en español, un cambio que agradecí bastante.
I made this image just over a year go in Silver Falls State Park, near Salem, Oregon. I lived in Portland for quite a few years, but never made the trip to this beautiful spot with a camera in hand. Something I fixed last year.
This is my favorite image of that day, and I call it Silver Waterfall. It is also one of my newest additions to the Image of the Month collection.
Remember: there are two sizes to choose from, 6x6 and 8x8 (inches). In both cases, the matt and frame are 12x12 (this means a bigger margin for the 6x6 print).
Shipping is free to the US now. International shipping is a flat rate of $19.95.
A new image will be released every month and offered at a reduced price during that time. After 30 days, it will be sold at full price. They will never be on sale at any time in the future, the rate during the first month will be the lowest, ever.
You can find more information about how I create my images and all the details about pricing on The Art and Craft behind my prints.
...that'd be the Tamron 28-200mm f/2.8-5.6.
I never had a super zoom lens before, and I had a lot of doubts about this one before getting it. And now I can't see myself with it. In many ways, it is the replacement of my now dead RX100VII.
I just love the range, image quality, and speed in that small package. It's also relatively affordable, especially for a full-frame lens.
Of course, it comes with some compromises, like strong vignetting (fixable in post for the most part), variable aperture (it goes down to f/3.2 by 32mm, and it reaches f/5.6 at 158mm) and, above all, it lacks stabilization - this could be a problem when shooting at long focal lengths. Personally, it wasn't a deal breaker for me.
Galicia, October 2021.
An image I would've never made if it wasn't for my bike. This church was too far to get to by foot, and the road was too rough to drive on - with my car, at least.
I loved the contrast between these "pillars": the natural ones and the human made one. It's these kind of human elements that I try to add into my work, I feel like they make for very interesting images.
Galicia, October 2021.
A plam tree on a foggy and cold morning. Far from its natural habitat, I wonder how it feels to be here.
Photography (and art, in general) is not a zero-sum game. The goal should never be to try to “steal” a slice of the pie from other photographers, but to help each other to make the pie bigger. The more people know about photography, the more joy they can find in art, the better for every creator out there.
That’s why we owe so much to the photographers that came before us, and to the photographers that are bringing more and more attention to this world nowadays.
Want to stand tall? Don’t wish everyone else were shorter, just take yourself to higher ground.
Galicia, October 2021. From the video "A bike and a camera".
I always wondered why scarecrow. Is it only to scare crows? In Spanish, these are called espantapájaros, or scarebird - because it's supposed to scare birds in general.
Anyway. This is an image I knew I had to make when I saw the scarecrow in the middle of a turnip field, on a foggy morning riding my bike. This is one of those images that I know will look terrific in print, and I can't wait to see it myself.
I've been having a lot of fun with my bike lately. My bike and my camera, that is: almost the perfect marriage. I got to go to places where I'd never go neither by foot nor by car, and as a result, I made some new images. I got sick, though, as the temperature drops like a billion degrees when you ride a bike in cold weather. Totally worth it.
