Heading South
There was a time in my life when I found shelter from city life in the south of Spain. I shot many rolls there, especially in Cabo de Gata. It’s been a while since then, but hopefully, you can catch a bit of those days. Rambling from cove to cove, chasing sunsets over the semi-desert volcanic landscape.
Monsul Beach - where Indiana Jones and his father scape the nazis
I visited Almería for the first time with “Los Berracos” from Hortaleza St. It was Easter, and we decided to spend a few days in Agua Amarga. It would take me a couple of years to return. And then I went back many times with J, with whom I took all these photos.
Roadtrips around Cabo de Gata
It was with him, one morning as we woke up in Cala de Enmedio, that I realized I had been there before, with the Berracos. That little beach holds a very warm place in my heart. One Christmas, rummaging through my grandparents’ belongings, I was thrilled to find a postcard of Cala del Plomo. “They loved Cabo de Gata,” my mom told me.
Waking up in Cala del Plomo - shoot on disposable morning
J told me it’s the only desert in Europe and that many Western movies were filmed there. And let me tell you, the light (and the landscape) were breathtaking. I’ll never forget the way the sun set in the desert through the train window the first time I headed south with J. It was the biggest, most vivid orange sun I’d ever seen.
Almería became a kind of refuge just seven hours on a Talgo train from Atocha station.
We went on road trips around Cabo de Gata, hopping from cove to cove. J used to drive while I was in charge of picking the music and taking photos.
He taught me how to dive without fear at Cala de las Sirenas; we smoked as the sun set and cooked noodles for dinner at the beach. In El Cabo, I learned to shed my clothes in nature and savor the joy of reading under an umbrella. In the mornings, after breaking camp, we’d search for delicious toast with olive oil and tomato. Once, we even survived a thunderstorm on the beach.
It’s been some time I last visited, and it feels like several lifetimes have passed. But I love knowing that, for a while, that place in the south became a familiar place, a place to return to.
I think part of the warmth from that time in my life, from the person I was and we were, seeps into these photos.
