Sunday, December 16, 2007

"Watch out!... The car in front of us is sliding!..." - My mate, alerts me for the car sliding from one side to the other of the road on I80... We are driving on a freezing rain storm, trying to get to New York...
The car finally stops on the right side of the road and the young girl on the wheel seams ok as we drive by... After some minutes she overtakes us as if she was driving on dry weather... I fight with myself for a couple of miles, we see another car spinning on the road... I get scared and end up deciding that we should abort our plans and drive back to the hotel...

This is the 2'nd time I pull back in two days... I can remember going through insane limits several times... Driving long distances at insane speeds, climbing alone without climbing skills and safety equipment, you name it... Today even a short walk through the woods seamed to scare me as I heard the trees cracking due to ice... Maybe I'm watching to much tv and paying to much attention to weather.com... Maybe I'm more of a grown up, than I thought I was several posts ago...

"With the storm that's comming tomorrow, all this snow will be gone due to rain and wind..." - We're chatting with a cross coutry skier at Ricketts Glen State Park PA, it's sub freezing and we're walking on several inches of powder snow...

"This is this years first snow" - he continues - "I love winter time in this place"... I can understand him, I think to myself as we walk away... Except for our footsteps we hear nothing but silence... As usual, as I get immersed into these places I stop feeling the cold weather and my mind starts finding images on every turn of the way...

Later on, the respect for nature, trail conditions and obviously fear, made us back off after only the first one of several dozens of waterfalls...

Friday, December 14, 2007

"but sir, this is a Lincoln!!!..." - I'm at the the car rental park in Newark airport and when I see the car that was reserved for me I ask for something different...
It was not my intention to offend of of the crown jewels of US auto industry, but the car just seamed too big and clumsy... But considering that we had a considerable amount of luggage we took it... As with any other car, after a short trip, I had forgotten about about how it looked or felt...

Until... On out fourth day in the Pocono Mountains region we where forced to leave the office on the middle of the day during a snow storm... After removing some inches of snow from the windshield, and trying to find my way out of the parking lot (it's difficult to tell where's the road when everything looks white) I drove slowly to the hotel, wishing I was driving something else... Somewhere else...

Later on I could not stay in the hotel, I picked up the camera and used it as an excuse to walk in the woods under falling snow... It's true, I tend to find myself in strange places... Kneeling down on soft snow and feeling the cold breath of nature was all I needed...

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

“” We could go to the end of the world, but today we’ll just go to the office”… - This thought comes to my mind several times whenever I enter my car in the morning and turn the key…

I have written before about my contradiction of loving the pure outdoors and driving a 4x4 that pollutes more that normal cars… Driving on it to the office every day, acts as a reminder that there is a big world out there, far away from the usual maze of chaos and conference calls…

I know, there are probably better ways for reminders, but I can only act rationally during a small percentage of my time…

Monday, November 19, 2007

“sorry, it’s my 1’st day at the job, I’ll have to ask my boss”… - I’m the only client at a roadside restaurant, and asked if they had ½ bottles of red wine…

Strange enough, this is the 1’st time I talk to someone in the last 12 hours… I spent the day searching for images, minding my own thoughts (or their absence)… Had I not found something to trigger my inspiration, I’d end up picking up one from the maze of ideas that cross my mind as I write this in my old paper book…

Being here, makes me thing about my desire of being anonymous from time to time, being the person that arrives in the night, asks for food and a glass of wine and departs into the night leaving no trace…

In fact, I’ve been doing this through life thinking that one day this part of me will be over, due to the simple fact that I’ll grow up… But grown-ups don’t climb to the top of a hill just to salute the end of another day. They don’t walk in the mud and don’t lie down in the floor just to see the trees touching the sky...

I look at my wine glass and remember that only grown-ups should drink…

Sunday, November 11, 2007

“we won’t have mushrooms to photograph this year, you know”… - António salutes me when I arrive in the extreme northeast of Portugal for one of his autumn workshops…

I had spent much of the time during my 500 km drive from Lisbon wondering about potential images, and yes much of them involved mushrooms…

It’s funny, how photography turns our instincts around… blue skies and sunshine are boring, whereas rain and ice are welcome, eating is not that important and time runs faster in the first and the last hours of the day…

For some time I tried to shoot sunlit scenes as if they where under the rain, but it’s a fact that whenever we are to obsessive in bending reality into our hard minded vision, we loose sight of what reality has to show…

Friday, November 02, 2007

"some people have the capacity to dream, some people have the capacity to make their dreams come true..." - one of my gym trainers urges us to push our limits further...

The sentence and the situation is completely off topic, but it made me think that lately I'm a little confused on what my dreams are... It's a fact I've not been dreaming much and obviously I'm not working towards making my dreams come true... The fact that I stopped writing for some time is also a sign that I've been living too much in the real/hard/concrete side of things...

At that point, in the middle of trying my best without falling apart I tried to think about one dream that would be hidden in the deepest realms of my memories... Only one thing came to my mind: "Everest"...

What do I mean with that? Well I don't know... Thinking about it again, it's a fact that mount Everest comes to my mind from time to time... Seeing it, flying over or climbing it are possible ways of making the idea more concrete, but for now, I'll leave it as it is... The basic form of a dream...

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

"the fact that this summer has been quite mild is not that bad, as we did not have as many problems with fire as we did in the past..." - I recal hearing this on tv as I drive to my home town (its more like a very small village)...

I don't know why, but I tend to think a lot about photography while driving... This time, besides fire, I'm thinking about why I don't have created a single image around my home town...

When I was young I was forced to spend the whole 3 months of my summer holidays in this place, near the geographical center of Portugal, a region known for the heat and the abundance of pine trees... Over the years I saw this region burning over and over again... The first fires I remember seeing, where just a small column of fire in the horizon, then some of them started to last days and even weeks and as the time passed by the whole area around my home town was burned several times...

I remember being small and looking up at pine trees amazed by their size... Now, the landscape is completely different most of the big trees are gone, and although this has been a mild summer, I can still see the traces of the areas that where recently burned...

Why don't I take pictures over there... Well perhaps I'm too busy when I go there, or my emotions just don't let me start...

The picture you see above was taken in 2004 at a Sequoia grove in Yosemite national park (US) during a managed fire... Over there fires are provoked in a controlled way in order to create the conditions for the survival of the giant Sequoias and to keep the forest clean... (in case you wonder, this is not what we are doing in Portugal)...

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

"f#$%&$k" - My own thoughts... It's 4 am, I'm driving to "Cabo da Roca" with the intention of shooting the moon set, the sky is clear when I leave home, but when I'm 500m from my destination everything gets covered in mist...


“Why do I do this”… I’m walking down the trail to my favorite spot in the darkness, seeing only the beam of my headlamp sweeping the mist… The trail is a 300m descent into a small rocky beach with loose rocks and some difficult obstacles along the way… I’ve been to this place more times than I can remember, but yes… This time I’m scared…

Half way down to the beach, the mist starts to clear and I’m able to see the moon again… For a while I’m thinking about the multitude of texts describing moments when nature is kind to photographers and to those who dare to leave the bed at insane times… But when I really get to the beach and start mounting the tripod for my first shoot the moon gets completely covered with clouds and never shows up again…

Without the moonlight I stay in the dark for more than one hour before I see the first traces of sunshine… Still I point my cameras somewhere and wait… Heck, I’m here so I’d better create some images anyway…

At 11h00, I finally feel I’m finished for the morning… Even if the weather doesn’t help, there’s so much to do "just" with stones…

Monday, July 23, 2007

"blue whale!!!..." - The Haukur Schooner's skipper, spots something in the horizon and before we can understand what's going on, he changes direction and rushes the engine...
I’m standing on a lamp at the bow (imagine a 50cm cube), it sounded like a good way for shooting above everybody’s heads but as the boat increases speed this suddenly becomes an odd way for training my balance… But ok, I continue looking towards the horizon and try to harmonize with the boat’s movements.

We’d already seen dolphins and a humpback whale… And after those I thought I could already go back home with stories to tell… I wasn’t much worried about pictures as I was aware I still did not have the training or the skill to do the kind of pictures I’d like to do so I was more worried on enjoying the moment…

Whales come to the surface every 5 minutes or so, sometimes I’d fire a burst of pictures, sometimes I’d just forget I was holding a heavy camera and used all my senses to try to build memories... The spray of a whale that just emerged, the sensation of its size compared to us and our boat, the surrounding sounds and and the whale songs, the cold wind, the sea...

The fact that we are almost at arms reach to the biggest animal on earth (even bigger that any dinosaur that ever lived on the planet), makes us feel privileged and humbly small at the same time… The fact that we can share the same waters makes me wonder why we are doing the atrocities we do this world… Still whales look calm and serene; they just keep on going singing their stories trough their seasonal trips around the world…

Saturday, July 14, 2007

"this is Iceland, you don't need to rush, you can stay for as much as you wish, you can even sleep in the floor if you wish to..." - The manager at the Aldan Hotel Restaurant in Seydisfjordur, an half French half Spanish globetrotter, let's us know about some of his impressions regarding Iceland's way of living...


"the only country I remember as being more expensive than Iceland is Japan" - he continues describing the first impacts he had when first arriving in Iceland

I was in Japan a long time ago, I remember the country as being expensive, but as usual we tend to pay more attention to present situations, and yes, coin after coin, day after day Iceland almost burned wholes in our pockets…

If in one hand it’s easy to understand the reason why Iceland is so expensive as most goods have to be imported into the country… On the other hand I was never able to understand what made it possible for Icelanders to keep their high living standards… While there I was unable to understand what would be the economical activities supporting the country, as there are no obvious resources that can be sold to other countries…

Several times I told myself I’d have to investigate this when getting back, I’m writing this here so that I don’t forget to check it ;)

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

"is this just me or do you also feel you're in a different planet" - another little guy, breaks the silence halfway between nowhere and Landmannalaugar...

I think that if I had to pick a moment from my trip in Iceland and forget all the others, this would be the one I'd keep...

Generally speaking, Iceland is a small country, but due to its low population rate the insulation feeling we get at times is similar to being in the large landscapes of the American South West, but with the big difference that the landscape changes much faster and looks different from whatever we've been able to imagine before...

Joining this with the added bonus of long and almost empty unpaved roads, the empty world ahead, the dust cloud we're leaving behind, the mixture of feelings from image to the sensation of driving the Paris-Dakar...

Leaving a gravel road and entering a 4x4 only road makes us feel even more far away... The road would change from sand, to hard rocky grounds, to black sand, going up and down extinct volcanoes, crossing glacial rivers... Almost touching the sky or dropping into strangely colored lakes...

We finally stopped... My mind felt as being crashed by to many sensations, it took me some time to even dare do take a picture... I eventually did, I took lots of them... but whatever I felt during these almost 200 km of road, stayed there and seams that can only be described in memories...

Monday, July 09, 2007

"sorry sir, we only have sofa beds, only 4 person apartments feature normal beds and those are very expensive..." - I just got to Brussels and been through one of the most unreal situations I remember...

I should start by saying that I did not have any alcohol before going into the hotel...

When I entered the Hotel room, I found a living room, with a TV and a sofa and thought "cool, this must be some kind of apartment"...

Then I started trying to find the bedroom, and... There wasn't any... I still went back and forth from the living room to the bathroom, looking for some hidden door, but no... There was no bed!!!...


I finally saw a leaflet titled "how to mount the sofa-bed"... Well, I've been through lots of strange situations while traveling, but I don't remember the last time I was caught in surprise by something like this...

Almost in disbelief, I called the reception in order to figure if that was the only kind of rooms they had, but strangely enough that was the standard for the hotel...
It still took me some time to find the most comfortable sofa bed configuration... But ok... By 2 am I was asleep...

In the meanwhile I was thinking about other situations from past trips, like having slept on a bedroom where I could hear cockroaches running from one side to the other, or when the hotel maid entered my room and I was sleeping naked...

So here it is: life as life can be... One more funny experience and counting...

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

"all set, here's your receipt, have a nice trip back..." - I'm at the rental counter coming back home from Iceland, and yes... It's been a while...

During the last months it seams like I’ve been flying through life… work, mountain biking, photography and trips went through without much chance for thinking about what’s going on with destiny, and more important than that: what’s next...

Every post in this blog starts with some event in the context of an interaction between me and someone else. It started like this without any intended purpose, but from the beginning in seamed right… After all, my experiences with the world inspire whatever I write here…

The trip in Iceland made me think a lot about the way I feel the world and create images. I was probably to closed in my own thoughts in order to interact and describe any experiences… One thing is for sure: there is no point in mentioning that I finally finished a mountain bike marathon or that I got to Landmannalaugar if I’m not capable of expressing the emotions I went through on the way…

Through time I’ve heard people and religions praying that the trip is much more important than the final destination… But I had never considered how much of these moments I’m letting out of my writings and photography...

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

“It’s past 4 pm, you won’t be able to make it to the finish line on time, you can’t continue…” – Again, I’m laying on the ground looking at the stars while attempting star trails, and thinking to myself that I still did not write about this…

During the last weeks, I had trained for this 100 km long mountain bike marathon… This is quite an event with 4500 participants, but with the big drawback that off-road trails are not big enough for so many souls and we waited for about two hours before being able to really depart… After 73 km, we were told that we could not continue as the time limit was not changed due to initial hiccups…

It’s hard to describe the emotions one goes through while cycling through a never ending maze of tracks, sometimes down bellow in hidden valleys, sometimes up above in the ridge of mountains… I was not carrying a camera, but I’m keeping a series of images in my mind…

I was really pissed when they did not let me finish. At that point I had the feeling I would be able to get to the finish, I was already over any distance I had rode before feeling fine and enjoying the ride…

Unexpectedly, this one in a lifetime event seams like routine… I’ve been riding every weekend and there are two more marathons waiting for me in the next two weekends… And what about photography you ask?... Well I’ll keep on recording images without a camera…and you’ll have to keep looking at my boring star trail shots… sorry!...

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

“these are the details for your trip to Barcelona, can I issue the ticket?...” – I’m still not back to the office and I already have a new destiny… Two days and one night in Barcelona I hate short trips… I usually spend most of the time in meetings hotels and airplanes… I usually don’t even pack a camera with me as I don’t have the chance to use it...

If you’d ask me a couple of years ago I’d tell you that Barcelona was my favorite city to live in… Nowadays it still is one of my favorite cities, what has changed over time is that my interest in urban places is decreasing…

Anyway… Here I am, back to one of my sanctuaries, with my last opportunity for shooting during this short break… Star trails under the moonlight, two cameras pointed up, the sound of waves and… A last bit of peace of mind...

Sunday, April 29, 2007

“do you want to have a beer?...” – One of yesterday’s campers invites me for a beer, actually I’ve been invited several times whenever I pass by them…
Once again I can’t stop, this time I’m driving back from my last shoot, and I’m urging to get back on time for receiving a new carpet the shop is delivering… Yes, I do have a home and I do go there sometimes… It’s also true that most times when going back I think more about the next time I’ll leave than regarding what I’ll be doing there... But I’m trying hard to have it decorated before retirement age…

I drive slowly through the last kilometers of dirt road, before touching asphalt after spending almost two days out of it…

Almost painfully, details and photo opportunities seam to jump in front of me out of nowhere, although it’s around noon the light looks as good as dusk or dawn… Just like the beer I was offered some moments ago I have to let go and force myself not to stop…

As my speed increases on major roads, fields with flowers turn into color patches that make me feel like I’m driving through a dream… I’d like to have the opportunity to remember whatever comes to my mind at these times… “Maybe I should record my thoughts as Galen Rowell did…”

Still, although feeling miserable with the departure I can’t help admitting how lucky one must be just by being able to live as I do sometimes…

Saturday, April 28, 2007

“are you the owner of this land?...” – Two campers ask me if I own the land where they had just mounted their tents…

It’s almost the end of my second day in Noudar… I’m alone shooting in this remote place, and at this point I’m trying to entertain my mind until my last attempt at doing star trails is finished…

A good and bad thing in this location is that I can bring my car to almost every spot and use it as kitchen and living room while hopping that long exposures will make miracles on my film or digital sensor…

“heck, today it’s cloudy and there are no many miracles to be expected… Well this will be a fairly good reason to come back here…” - I think to myself while eating an orange under the moonlight… - “but at least I’m here, what else could I wish for?...”

Sometimes I tell myself that I should take advantage of these moments and think more about life, but my mind seams completely void of any thought… More than shooting I’m making use of my ability of not thinking about much for a change…

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

"no clouds, not to many flowers, spring is really late this year and considering the wind I wont be much lucky with macro's"... - A good thing about spring time is that I can leave the office and still have some time to drive somewhere and create images...
My mind is bubbling is ideas for the next days... And at the same time destiny seams to be organized in to conspiration for not letting me go out... The balance from what pays bills and gives me the chance to be what I am and the time I have for doing what I like is a constant field of conflict...

Every day, the sun raises and sets in a different way, tides change, big amounts of sand and stone move from place to place, seeing only a part of this feels like not witnessing life in itself... Today I'm in one of those days I can't keep from looking the rain falling outside and feeling that I'm loosing the best part of it...
"where are you?" - a friend asks the same old question when exchanging emails... It's a fact that for those that do not see me quite often it's difficult to know how much do I travel or not...
It's a fact that with time, trips loose their special character... Some people walk or drive to their jobs, I also do, but sometimes I also take an airplane... This is so natural that I even stopped warning my family of my whereabouts... The problem rises when the percentage of people feeling as I do is only a small slice of the world population, and others feel insulted by this detached behavior of mine...

Wherever I am and as thrilling as my adventures may be, there are always the ones I miss and remember about... And so are the places I always end up going back to when I get back home, these are my sanctuaries, and although I seam to always be creating the same old images when I go there, there's something different in the emotions I bring back home...

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

"i see that your photographic instincts are not driven by the beauty of what you're shooting..." - Valentin observed that although we where far from being in a perfect place I could still find what to shoot...
It may look strange, but if you look at my photo albums you probably won't find straight images of monuments or any man made land mark people look for when traveling somewhere... I don't know the explanation for this as I don't avoid these shots, I just think that there's always something else catching my attention.

My inner visions of India are more bound to people and movement than to any other detail... Even now after coming back home my biggest regrets are for not having the time to experience the contact with common people for more than a couple of hours...

The looking glass effect I described before, takes time to go away and a couple of hours outside the controlled environment of offices, cars and hotels is not enough to let go of initial fears and let destiny lead the way...

Sunday, March 25, 2007

"yes, sir you are allowed to take as many snappers as you wish"... - I had asked if I was allowed to take pictures of a temple and as always, India proved to be one of the most photo friendly places one might think off...

I'm used to expect some people to see me as a threat whenever I show up with my camera in hand... In India, people see me, but instead of fear they show the same level of interest on who I am, where I'm from and what I'm doing, that I have regarding everything I see...

From my interaction with people, and the explanations of some local friends, everyday I find out how different cultures and time evolutions can render basic instincts completely different... From my limited time here I see that the more I know, the more I understand that I'm not even close to figuring the real meaning of some of my images...

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

"tomorrow is a national holiday in India, we wont be coming to work, but you may come if you wish to"... - Guess what, my birthday is new year's day according to the Hindu Calendar!...

To be honest, I usually feel like disappearing on my birthday, so being out of home is almost the best option for pretending that this "one more" year just didn't pass... And actually, if I count this way I'll probably still be bellow thirty!!!...

Frustrating as it might seam, not even on a holiday I had the time to go out... I'm in my third day in Hyderabad's Hitech City and for the first time in India, if I just look at the hotel, and the office, it almost feels like I'm in the US... Heck!... What a good way to travel somewhere and not being there after all...

Sunday, March 18, 2007

"you are not entitled to use a sit belt in here"... - It's probably the first time I travel on the front seat of a car in India, and here's another difference that just makes me think about the the distance between the several worlds I travel by...

Later in the same day, I hear something like: Surf or even going into the sea water is perceived as something dangerous here, most people will not even consider doing it... I never understood danger to be relative, but I come to the conclusion that just as we filter what we see we also filter through our perception of danger...

People here seam to be protected by some kind of special luck that prevents cars from bumping into each other and people being ran over when crossing the street... I never thought about this before but maybe this same luck also protects people in the rest of the world whenever they push their own limits... Whatever dangers there migth be...

Friday, March 16, 2007

"sorry sir, it's past 11 pm, we can't serve alcohol anymore"... - The waiter in the hotel restaurant let's me know that I can't have a beer with dinner...


Once again, I've been spending too much time around computers, cables and dark server rooms than standard health care principles should allow to any human being... I keep on seeing everything from the confort of cars air conditioning during trips to and from the office, and yes, I'm not creating the images I'd like to...

Still and even on the most casual situations I keep on finding my questions and doubts around matters I'll probably never have the time to understand about this country... It's like being reborn again and going back to the age when everything is a novelty, but this time I'm to ashamed to keep on asking why for every new piece of information, every minute...

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

"sorry to disturb you mister... please contact our ground staff regarding your luggage... we're affaid it's not on the plane"... - 15 minutes before landing the flight attendant let's me know that for some strange reason my bag stayed in Frankfurt...


Well... This sounds familiar... But still unusual, we are not on August 12'th and I didn't even do a transfer, so there must be some cosmical conspiracy that dictates something like this: me x India = lost luggage...

This time things go surprisingly well... All paperwork is done and waiting for me to sign on arrival... I'm given an indemnization w/o having to ask for it... I still had to go shopping, but ok everything looked to be ontrack... The bag was delivered to me in the hotel, w/o damage a little bit more than 24 hours after landing... at 5 a.m!!!...

And this brings me to one more thing that is impressive about this country: shedules...
India does not stop over nigth... Some companies just follow US tizeones, others just don't stop... There's a mixture of efficiency and chaos in here that just troubles my mind...

Monday, March 12, 2007

“come back in one piece and don’t forget to update your blog”… - I’m back to my desk around 8 pm the day before departing to India, Cat has left me a goodbye message along with some project billing notes…

I was tired and the last thing I’d like to do for the rest of the day was to go home and pack… The flight would only be during the afternoon so I ended up leaving most things to be done during the moorning…

As usual, I’m faster packing my suitcase than my photo backpack… I know that whenever I forget something behind I end up discovering new ways of using my equipment, but still I try to avoid these situations and keep the kit as functional as possible… Once again I’m not bringing a tripod… I did not miss It the last time, will I miss it now?...

My mindset in these moments is difficult to describe… I’m usually distant, and not thinking about much… I guess that from the outside I even look sad… All in all, the fact that I’ll be sitting in airplanes for two days, keeps my adrenalin levels to the minimum… In fact having an idea on what’s going to happen in my life for the next two days has been quite uncommon during the last months, so it would probably be better to rest as much as possible and get ready for what’s to come…

Due to flight limitation in this time of the year, my trip will take two days… At night in the first day I’m having Thai soup, a French dish and Italian wine in Frankfurt… It should not feel right from the outside, but feels great…

Tuesday, March 06, 2007

"I've been reading your blog, it's amazing that by sitting next to you every day I can't have the faintest idea regarding what you're really feeling..." - Lisa is surprised that I usually don't show emotions as I do when writing...

Well... What can I say... I still have a long way to go, and I probably will never get there, but one of the biggest ambitions of most poets (image or writing does not matter) is to let others experience reality through their feelings...

Still the ground rules of society and responsibility also bound our ability to show emotions... Being impolite or simple frightening are only two of the risks I could face if I'd let the accumulated rage and stress of these days speak for themselves...

As an alternative I just look outside and figure that everything I'm experiencing is still too small to be important, and that a simple cloud reflecting the warm light of the end of a day is far greater than any problem grown up people can come up with...

Still, even when writing I undergo through different levels of honesty... As Blue Little Guy, I tend to be clear in my messages... But I also have those days when there's just something I want to say without saying and use words as hideouts...

If you usually come here for more than pictures, and where able to get to this paragraph, you'd probably deserve to know the other side of my writings... This is where I usually go whenever thoughts just pop out of my mind without any kind of control... And yes I'm sorry, but I can't do this in English...

Wednesday, February 28, 2007

"it's snowing in Sanabria..." - The teaser in Antonio's announcement for his workshop in an unknown region in the north of Spain shows up in my inbox, in the middle of thousand of emails regarding impossible missions, never ending procedure chains and clients on fire...

Although it's a fact that at the distance of two days it would be impossible to leave everything and just go... These sentences bring my image seeking instincts back to light...

In the last two weekends I was able to reestablish some shooting habits, and to visit some of my usual loved places... I always drive back home asking myself how can I live without it, and how small will my life time be in order to enjoy all of this... And... Aaarghhh!!!!... Today, I'm completely exhausted, looking at the moon rising as the sun disappears on the other side of the horizon... Offices with windows have this problem of showing us what we're loosing...

Well... I'll be traveling soon... that's a good thing...

Friday, February 23, 2007

"when are you flying to India?..." - my CEO, meets me at the coffee machine and surprises me with a strange and revealing question...


"well... I still don't know..." - my answer is vague enough not to show that I still don't know what he's talking about... But, if he said so...

Two weeks passed on and in the middle of the never ending and increasing level of stress I now know that I'll probably be traveling again... These last times have been completely devoid of image creation moments, and for some strange reasons I also stopped editing my work... Sometimes I feel like if the strange element that powered my will to succeed as a photographer just ran out...

Friday, February 02, 2007

"i'll be going now..." - Inha's wet eyes remind me this is her last day in the office, I'm just back from holydays and as usual the stress of coming back makes me forget what's really important...


Inha is not going to travel along the Pan-American Highway by bike nor hike the Himalayas in search of the perfect light... She is departing for love... This seams even harder than any other trip...

So here goes another brave person who decided to take hold of destiny... This time she's not just somebody I met in a remote location or someone I read about in a magazine, she's one of those real friends that will be hard to let go...

"remember, the world is too small nowadays, we'll be just around the corner..."

Monday, January 29, 2007

“there are some issues that we’d better not justify completely”… - I can’t stop reminding a statement from one of my mentors that goes something like this…

As someone that likes to do landscape photography and enjoys the outdoors, I have my own contradictions… I drive a car every day, which pollutes more than needed; I like to drive in off road tracks that should be left to nothing else but silence and I enjoy snowboarding in resorts that where created at the expense of destroying entire ecosystems...

I’m in the French Alps, with all the commodities for arriving to the top of most peaks, but unfortunately for me snowboarding does not mix with photography thus all images will have to be kept in memories… One day, I’ll have to come back to the mountains with the time and means for letting others see what I’ve been gathering all over time…