Unsure as to whether this was going to be an article about a location guide, photographic inspiration or “what’s in my bag”; I decided to make it about all three! Consequently, it’s quite lengthy but I do split it broadly into those areas if you feel like dipping into one aspect first, although I do think it reads better top to bottom. For information, I did write a little about this location previously on my own website blog after I first visited it last year (2013) but, prompted by a return visit again this year (2014) and a spate of recent articles here on On Landscape featuring a certain volcanic destination. I thought I would throw in an alternative somewhat similar destination just to mix things up a little bit.
So then, to start with let’s play a little guessing game – if I ask you to visualise an island with volcanoes, a sparse landscape, solidified lava flows with beaches of black gritty sand sparkling with lumps of ice and, skylines that glow with vivid green where do your thoughts immediately turn? I am going to hazard a guess and predict you were thinking of the current draw of many landscape orientated photographers; Iceland.
But what if I now throw in a constant all year round temperature of +70c, that there are in fact a number of islands not just one and, those lumps of ice are in actuality small cubes cossetted in tumblers cooling cocktails and the green glow is the luminescent aura of neon tubes of a bar?
I am of course referring to lands much further south than Iceland, indeed quite close to the equator and whilst there are a few destinations that might meet these criteria, I am talking of ‘Islas Canarias’ – the Canary Islands; that ever so popular all year destination of holidaymakers in search of sun, sea and sand.
Beach
The location
Why the choice of a stereotypical sun seeking holiday island as a photographic destination then? Well, firstly it was not necessarily intended to be a photo trip; indeed, a holiday but secondly, not wanting to totally crash on a beach for days on end, I did need some sort of mental stimulus so the opportunity to create images from a destination I certainly had not really seen featured in any extent something I could not overlook.
Ordinarily though, with my wife Debbie our previous trips abroad had been more activity based but the time had come to switch off and recharge entirely which meant limiting the amount of travelling once in situ at the chosen location. The requirements list for the break grew daily as we combined experiences of likes and dislikes of travelling abroad and around the UK. Whilst the usual suspects of plenty of sun, cool sea breezes, and places to eat appeared on the wish list, some degree of interesting culture also featured quite strongly on the odd occasion we did feel the need to explore or the weather turned inclement.
Also, wanting to keep air travel time to no more than a few hours helped to limit choices. So, after a little more research and throwing in a few more requirements to provide some photographic interest a few candidates began to appear, ultimately with the Canary Islands coming top of the list. From my perspective I did see this location as an opportunity to get out of my image making comfort zone a little, so that meant woodlands, babbling brooks, mist and rain; in fact anything that makes the UK such a great place to photograph the landscape was to be off the menu. Indeed, I was quite relishing the idea of searching out new opportunities in a landscape which is an almost complete opposite of my usual hunting grounds; somewhat hoping the trip would prove to be both recuperative and stimulating for the mind.
Fuerteventura from Papagayo
So, having whittled things down to the Canary Islands it was then a case of honing it down to which island. We had already been to Fuerteventura; I had been to Tenerife, so Lanzarote seemed a good blend of those two. With the opportunity to see the unique home and wonderful work of César Manrique swinging it for me. I will talk a little about the different islands later but there is plenty of material out there on the interweb if you feel the need to do a little more research yourselves. In the meantime I will stick to what I discovered of potential interest to me on Lanzarote. So with everything booked up that just then left the ‘easy’ decision of what photographic equipment to take.
I will cover the equipment subject in more detail later on in this article but as this was not to be a dedicated photography holiday, I was to limit myself to the occasional outings. So combined with luggage restrictions there was no sense in taking lots of gear. On the subject of luggage restrictions though, being a bloke and given the destination; luggage weight was never going to be much of a restriction was it? – Passport, money, flip flops, sunnies, hat, shorts and T-shirt… sorted! All in all this seemed an ideal opportunity to try out a lighter weight 5×4 field camera setup I had been putting together. With a digital backup of my LX5 compact and iPhone on the first trip and then latterly on the return visit this year in 2014, with a Sony A7R as the digital alternative to the LX5, again supplementing the 5×4 rig, more on this subject later though.
For those that don not know the Canary Islands that well, they consist of seven large and several smaller islands, all of which are volcanic in origin. Matched with their position just of the North African continent and according to the position of the islands with respect to the north-east trade winds and Gulf Stream, the climate can be mild and wet or very dry. The result is that each island has a distinct microclimate, the westerly islands are well vegetated even at low levels and have extensive tracts of sub-tropical forest.
each island has a distinct microclimate, the westerly islands are well vegetated even at low levels and have extensive tracts of sub-tropical forest. Travel east toward the African coast and the influence of the Gulf Stream diminishes, and the islands become increasingly arid
Travel east toward the African coast and the influence of the Gulf Stream diminishes, and the islands become increasingly arid. The Fuerteventura and Lanzarote islands being closest to the African mainland are effectively desert or semi desert. If you are flying in it is the arid nature of Lanzarote that strikes you most from the air, as well as the volcanoes of course and all the buildings being painted white, although I expect the winter months may be a little greener; we were travelling late June though and I would expect as the full summer arrives the place would only get drier. Looks can be deceiving though, on the ground there was plenty of life to be found as well as a real variety of colour; some of which you can see from some of these pictures through this article are naturally quite vivid.
The choice for our accommodation location was selected based on being a holiday rather than a photographic trip. So we were shacked up in a nice comfortable place on the outskirts of Playa Blanca at the southern tip of the Island which off course meant heading over the same ground regardless of wherever we happened to visit. Now with prior knowledge, if future visits were to be photography orientated I would probably base myself more centrally, perhaps out of the old capital, now a cultural centre, of Teguise. Being pretty much central Teguise is well placed to reach any part of the Island in less than an hour and arguably has the more charm than the touristy towns and villages on the Island, but of course Teguise being quieter than those resorts dotted around the coast. For those seeking a little more isolation some of the smaller fishing villages or even taking yourself away onto island of La Graciosa might suit; one of the few remaining places in Europe where there are no tarmac roads. That said, you probably couldn’t go far wrong with anywhere on the Island and, for us being able to walk 10/15 minutes into the main resort and old harbour the area suited us well.
Now, weather wise on our first trip, according to some of the local residents we had arrived during a poor spell. Apparently it was overcast cold and windy; strange that, we thought it was rather balmy with a nice cooling breeze and very pleasant! All relative I suppose, but for the first few days it did get quite gusty, Deb had fun seeing how far she could lean into the wind before falling over. The wind did settle down to a nice breeze which was quite fortunate as using large format can be a bit of a handful in the wind. Otherwise the weather did follow a pretty much consistent pattern through the trip; overcast until mid-morning, clearing to bright sunny skies through the day and then clouding up a bit in the evening. Those bright overcast morning did play into my favour though, quite ideal for me to seek out details to photograph. Nice and warm through the day, so shorts and T-Shirt all the way. If you were looking for wall to wall sunshine you might consider the north-eastern resorts though, from what we experienced any cloud tended to linger over the more southerly and western aspects of the island. Looking at a map its obvious to see why this happens, with the peaks of the National Volcanic park; Timanfaya, and mountain ridgeline extending to the North giving rise to cloud formation, then with the mountain slopes rolling off into the arid ash, solidified lava flow and dust plains towards the east. For the second trip this year, we coincided with a more typical weather pattern; sun from dawn to dusk!
Also, travelling in June to a destination towards the equator also meant much more inviting sunrise twilight times of 6am compared to the 4.30am in the UK; that said, being a holiday not many sunrises had the pleasure of seeing my camera pointed at it!
One modern defining factor for Lanzarote has been the influence of the artist César Manrique. Much of his works, in all its forms; painting, sculpture, architecture, is based on his connection with the land itself. Which he has in turn then reapplied to parts of the landscape; with innovative and striking architecture that blends the island’s culture, geology and ultimately its pure essence into new forms.
You will come across examples of these as you travel about the island but with those focused at visitors to the island, being designed as tourist attractions to explore the volcanic heritage of the island. As a tip, if you do decide to visit some of these spots, consider a discounted multiple location ticket. Plus aim to get there early on in the day or late afternoon to avoid the inevitable queues of bus loads of visitors.
Fire mountains
Before I move onto the next section I should clear up where I took the title for this article from – The Montañas del Fuego (Fire Mountains) were created between 1730 and 1736 when more than 100 volcanoes, covering more than 50 km², rose up and devastated this part of the island (including several villages). Many of these have been encapsulated within the National Volcanic Park; Timanfaya and as you might expect dominate the landscape wherever you are on the island.
During the first night, an enormous mountain rose up from the bowels of the earth; from its apex flames burst out that continued to burn for nineteen days – An extract taken from the eyewitness account of the priest of Yaiza, Andrés Lorenzo Curbelo, 1730
Now I wouldn’t want to scare anyone off but apparently according to the volcanologists, one of the neighbouring islands; Gran Canaria, is overdue an eruption!
Fire mountains – From its apex flames burst out
The photography; the inspiration
The days that we did venture out we covered off both the tourist spots and explore some of the more remote spots; I do like to go on little mystery tours to ‘just see what’s at the end of the road’, a great way to find little known places for future photographic reference. Deb has cottoned onto this now, whilst I try and pass of these little forays into the unknown as discovering the real aspect of the island: she now knows them as photography recce’s, which of course they really are! From my perspective I was looking for a spot convenient to our base to head out for a couple of mornings photography and given our location that did somewhat limit my range without having to set off too early, I was after all on holiday so predawn starts weren’t really in order. It was on one of these excursions I did find a location within 20 minutes drive of our base which would be ideal. It had a number of factors in its favour: a coastal cove orientated facing west so it would provide shade from the sun for a few hours, some protection from the constant breezes, easy access from a car park but more effort required to get up close to the action thereby keeping most other tourists away. Excursions typically did not arrive until mid-morning anyway though. On the coast (I had not photographed at the coast for years), looked like nothing I had seen before and most importantly had infinite photographic potential to explore a whole gamut of geology typifying the island as a whole.
to see how these environments changed from dawn to dusk, with the light painting a different landscape almost every minute that encompassed a myriad of different tones of red to yellow through the entire spectrum of browns and ochre’s was really quite entrancing at times
I think it was the fourth or fifth morning on the first trip that I first headed out to do some photography; in reality equating to just a few hours. From having travelled around the island for a few days I had started to tune in a little to the place and formed a few ideas of how I wanted approach some of the pictures. As I mentioned a little earlier, clearly the striking features are the volcanoes and the vast arid plains of volcanic ash, lava flow and dust, whilst interesting in itself not something I wanted to photograph in its broadest sense per-se. That said, to see how these environments changed from dawn to dusk, with the light painting a different landscape almost every minute that encompassed a myriad of different tones of red to yellow through the entire spectrum of browns and ochre’s was really quite entrancing at times.
César Manrique – Tobas 1966 – ©César Manrique Foundation
In a sense what you see on the surface is the result of the volcanic activity itself, an obvious statement really, but what interested me more was trying to scratch beneath the surface and see what lay beneath. In a way I wanted to capture the landscape through expression, looking for those abstracts that conveyed the environment without resorting to photographing the full landscape itself. You see the local master of this approach; César Manrique, expressing this through his art, particularly in a series of paintings that uses texture, depth and the strength of an organic form of abstraction to evoke a sense of the volcanic elements on the island. The work of César is certainly worth the time exploring, where you will see how he himself evolved as an artist; the directions he took but then also how he successfully made that connection to the physical landscape himself using the work he did with his building and landscape architecture.
The little cove I decided to concentrate on lay at the southern end of the National Volcanic Park; Timanfaya, seemingly carved out of the side of the hill where there looked to be natural join of the very hard solidified lava and softer ash materials. The action of the sea pounding into the softer material had exposed multiple layers of geology, nothing like I had seen before, very striking in texture, form and colour. In fact the colour contrasts in some places were quite overwhelming, particularly where the minerals from the ground had bled into the small pools of water, which in turn had been absorbed by the indigenous plant life which literally fluoresce-d as a result. Anywhere you can literally get below the surface of the island you will come across what I’ll call the ‘fire’ rocks; these are the volcanic rocks that have deep crimson and magenta colours. In fact this is probably the only place where I have ever come across magenta as a naturally forming colour in the landscape. There is a strong contrast of these colours against the blacks of the charred rocks, cooled lava flow and coarse gritty black beaches. If you’re visiting some of the tourist spots like the lava tubes you’ll get to see quite a bit of this, albeit making do with snapshot style photography as the touristy nature of these places limit the use of tripods, etc. As a consequence of all this variety of geology some of the pictures I created are arguably my most colourful to date; even with the use of colour negative film which is typically low to medium contrast.
El Golfo cove
Although the environment was completely alien to me and therefore quite exciting to explore I did temper my enthusiasm to immediately start photographing everything in sight. Quite by good fortune, although I would like to say it was planned (not); the timing of the second photography outing saw me arriving for low tide which then exposed a whole raft of additional opportunities. Shame no-one was about though to capture me paddling around in the warm water of the rock pools barefoot framing up under the dark cloth; quite liberating! On both those mornings the weather was in my favour with the light winds dying down overnight to leave still mornings and bright but overcast skies keeping the contrast down nicely so the natural colours had a chance to show.
In the end though there really was not sufficient time for me to connect enough with the environment to find a way of fully expressing what I wanted to achieve in those few short outings on that first trip and although I was pleased with the set of images I came back with I knew a return visited would be needed.
Moving forward to the subsequent trip then, with a year since the last, I had a chance to think a little about what I wanted to achieve. Partly influenced with the ongoing development of the series of work entitled Rock Art and Fragments I am working on, I really wanted to explore greater levels of abstraction. I had also been reading a bit more about how other photographers approached their work, as well as filling my head with all sorts of ‘mindful’ matter! My head was brimming with all sorts of ideas but amongst it all, I had a clear sense of what I wanted to achieve.
The plan was to try and develop on a few ideas I had with using more symbolism and metaphor in my work, blended with interpreting aspects of the intimate aspects of the land to represent the landscape itself; specifically the most recent period of the islands formation in the early 18th century. Surely this must have been a truly terrifying and incredibly destructive time to live through and, I was to try and weave the darkness of that period through the work.
All of this pales in comparison with the grief caused by the hopeless cries of men, women and children, ruined by this horrible event - Extract from a Lanzarote Town Hall document; 1730.
I was not closed to exploring other opportunities though, as is shown with a long overdue foray into including man made impacts as part of the work.
Cliff face in calcium deposits – The hopeless cries of men, women and children
Other than revisiting the cove I spent some time at on the first trip, which although again proved fruitful it was on a stroll along one of a series of beaches nestled in a set of coves adjacent to the resort we had returned too that literally unearthed a rich vein of potential material to work with. Indeed, I do not think I had seen as much such geological variation in such a short stretch of coastline before. Not to mention perchance stumbling upon a professional female swimwear shoot in progress on one morning, although I am sure I was the one that drew the most surprised looks when I promptly eschewed the action on the beach and started taking sketching shots of the cliff face!
Anyway, it was at this series of coves I was to spend most of my photography outings on this trip, spending many enjoyable hours picking my way along the bottom of the cliffs and dodging encroaching waves, or just taking time to sit on a rock or two and enjoy the moment. For me, the latter is a most often overlooked aspect of photography, how often do we come away from somewhere with no memory but that of something framed rectangular through a viewfinder or screen! It is as important for me to spend time understanding something of the subject as it is to simply look at it; in that way the subject begins to show itself to me.
The lava flowed at first as fast as running water, then it slowed down until it was flowing no faster than honey – Another extract taken from the eyewitness account of the priest of Yaiza, Andrés Lorenzo Curbelo; 1760
Lava flow – The lava flowed at first as fast as running water
Ultimately, even Deb got in on the action one evening; whilst I was framing up for various photographs she was exploring rock pools to create her own little collection of abstract images on her smartphone. Although it would be a few weeks before I saw the developed film such is it that I knew when I fired the shutter, the images from this area would be exactly what I wanted to achieve.
For me Lanzarote has proven to be an ideal base to combine both a relaxing summer location and photography. I can certainly see why people would return time and time again to holiday, and given the evidence of a large expat community; to live. In our short time there, so far I have barely began to uncover the image making potential on offer, clearly something César Manrique understood and dedicated much of his life-long artistic vocation to. Now having had the opportunity to see some of his work first hand I have begun to understand what it truly takes to interpret the landscape. In the meantime for more information about Manrique and his huge influence on Lanzarote take a look at the César Manrique Foundation (website).
Whilst we don’t currently have immediate plans to return to Lanzarote I suspect this has not been our last visit to these islands… there is still more work for me to explore here!
These are the images I best felt the expressed the elemental aspects I was looking for.
Equipment (what’s in my bag)
Now for the kit list and how I flew with all this…
As I have previously mentioned I planned to travel as light as is practical with a 5×4 large format outfit. Something I had not personally attempted before but fairly confident about the whole process given I was not likely to be the first or last to do this (just need to work out how to do it with the 10×8 next time!). On the first trip I also took along a small digital compact camera, a Panasonic LX5; to use for holiday snaps and sketching for the 5×4 images, and of course the camera on my phone: an iPhone 4S. As it turned out the LX5 stayed in the suitcase, not surprising really as for me the iPhone has pretty much replaced everything I needed the digi compact for plus adding a whole bunch of other app functionality suited to my photography – it also proved to be my saviour on the second trip which I will explain later. The most recent trip then saw me leaving out the LX5 but taking along a Sony A7-R with a handful of Nikon prime lenses and adapter. The idea with taking the Sony was to explore and experiment more with some of the urban aspects of the island without committing film.
Firstly the large format gear then. I ummed and aaahd over which lenses to take, as my photography tends to favour the moderately wide to medium telephoto range I finally settled on four to cover that, in reality in 95% of the case I used three lenses. Camera choice was easy; it was to be the Chamonix 45N-2, a lovely feather weight option which I married up with some Chamonix wood film holders which shaved a few more grams of the weight. I only took four film holders giving a potential eight frames per session, splitting the two film emulsions 50:50, so four frames of each. This actually worked out pretty spot on with the subjects I was photographing. If I had been out all day I would have taken my changing bag and film along to keep my film holders stocked up (probably in a cool bag of some sort) – not that I tend to use that many exposures in a typical day though.
Study of volcanic pebbles
Film choice was fairly straightforward. As I wanted to cover all eventualities I would take slide and colour neg, with the slide film of choice being Velvia 50. I typically use Velvia for more intimate abstracts of the landscape where the qualities of that emulsion bring vibrancy and separation of tone to an image. For anything else I would almost entirely default to colour negative with its lower contrast and wider exposure latitude being beneficial. Off the colour neg films I use I opted for Fuji PRO 160S to provide a little extra punch and fine grain to capture the surface textures, however, on the second trip I switched to Portra 160; pretty much my standard colour neg film now. The film was transported in my hand luggage both outbound and return and looks to have suffered no ill effects from the security scanners. I stored the film in plastic bags in the fridge at the accommodation and kept the unexposed and exposed film separated at all times. I could have saved a tiny bit more weight and space by combining everything in one box but that would have introduced a risk of confusion on my part at a later date.
Notably I did not take any filters, first time around that was probably a risk of missing out on an image but proved to be ok as I never used them and I left them out entirely for the second trip. Too be honest though, slipping in a couple of ND grads was not a big deal weight or space wise.
Dark cloth was to be the Paramo one, can not praise that product enough, for such a simple thing it is hugely useful in a number of ways and makes using my large format cameras a pleasure. Of course to really save weight I could have replaced the dark cloth with a T-Shirt to double up to wear on the holiday!
Large format kit list as follows:
Chamonix 45N-2 camera
Chamonix film holders x 4
Chamonix extension block (adds 10cm to the camera base / bellows length – didn’t use it though)
Paramo dark cloth
Schneider Super-Symmar XL 110 f5.6 lens (Used just once or twice)
Sinar Sinaron SE 150 f5.6 lens
Sinar Sinaron S 210 f5.6 lens (Switched on the second trip for the Rodenstock APO Sironar S SE 210MM f5.6)
Nikkor M 300 f9 lens
Gepe shutter release cables x 2
Lee system standard lens hood
Pentax digital spotmeter (plus spare battery)
Silvestri 6x Magnification Loupe
Manfrotto tripod 725B (includes integrated ball head)
Lightweight pop up light diffuser / screen (light shade for close up work, etc.)
Glif tripod adapter for the iPhone (fitted with the compatible tripod plate for the Manfrotto tripod)
Tape measure (for measuring bellows length on close up work)
Portable film changing bag
The Sony kit:
Sony A7-R
Nikon AF-D 35mm f2
Nikon AF-D 50mm f1.8
Nikon AF-D 85mm f1.8
Wireless remote release (Auction site £5 special)
Novoflex Sony to Nikon adapter
Kipon Sony to Nikon tilt shift adapter
With the exception of the tripod and a couple of the SLR Nikon primes which went into the hold baggage all the above went on in hand luggage and then into my pack system when we arrived at the accommodation which I will cover later.
Like most photographers I am always on the search for the perfect pack to transport all the gear about
Like most photographers I am always on the search for the perfect pack to transport all the gear about, alas, probably always having to compromise somewhere along the lines though! For some time now I have been using a lightweight option with some flexibility about it; this harks back to my time in the armed forces whereby the emphasis was on speed and agility and, not being encumbered by large amounts of gear on your back. The approach adopted then was a belt pack system with interchangeable packs that clip onto the belt depending on the task at hand. This led me to using something very similar from ThinkTank; the actual starting product I chose was the Speed Demon. This pack comes integrated with the belt onto which you then add other packs as you see fit. In my case I have a few expandable style soft ‘shell’ packs of varying volumes and shapes which suit the equipment I want to carry. This approach fits my needs really well, specifically by giving the adaptability I need, it is lightweight, I can work with the large format gear straight out of the system without removing it and it keeps my back and shoulders clear allowing me to also carry a small backpack if I needed to as well.
Even with the above kit in this pack system it gives me a fair bit of capacity to then carry additional items such as a water bottle or flask, some snack bars, additional clothing, etc, or alternatively I can eschew those items in favour of also carrying additional large format lenses as well and, when photographing in the UK, my medium format camera; Bronica SQ, 3 lens, 4/5 backs and additional film. With a Bronica SQ lens to Nikon F-Mount body adapter winging its way to me; which I will stack with the Kipon T/S adapter, it will also mean I can then standardise on the Bronica lenses for both medium format film and digital.
I did have a bit of drama with one critical item of kit on the second trip though; carelessly I dropped my Pentax digital spotmeter into the sea on my very first outing! Even with retrieving it within seconds it had clearly become waterlogged and resisting the temptation to see if it still worked I tucked it away in my pocket to try and dry it out later. So, what now, no light meter to help with the correct exposure for the film, especially with the slide film and its critical requirements about correct highlight exposure? Trusty iphone to the rescue then; using the Lightmeter app I initially got what I knew to be a broadly correct light reading and then with my knowledge of how accurate Lightmeter app was and how the different films respond to light, I was able to then expose the images. Happy to say, just one of the images was exposed incorrectly, all the others were pretty much spot on. As to drying out the meter itself, a trip to the local supermarket to source some rice and popping that and the meter into a sealable plastic bag had the thing functional again, albeit not until the last day of the trip!
The majority of the images shown in this article were all taken with the Chamonix large format camera but also a few from the Sony A7-R. I have realised I do not have any here that show the broader aspects of the landscape so I will have to rectify that on a return visit… anyone up for a week in the sun!?
The post The Land of the Fire Mountains appeared first on On Landscape.