Category Archives: spain

Granada, Spain

I’ve been going on and on for the last three posts about the Alhambra, but there’s really much more to see in Granada, Spain. In this post, I’ll share a few other random images from various spots around the rest of the old town. Above is the Church of Santa Ana just off of the Plaza Nueva. Next is the Parador de Granada — and amazing place to stay with an unbeatable location right in the midst of the Alhambra:

I got to know this next street well. It’s the transition between the pedestrian path down from the Alhambra and the old town:

The dome of the Church of Santo Domingo:

The spire of the Church of Santa Maria de la Encarnacion of the Alhambra:

The studio of painter Max Moreau, now a museum:

And no trip to Granada would be complete without a night of flamenco. This photo was taken at El Templo del Flamenco:

Alhambra exteriors

After two visits inside the Alhambra in Granada, Spain, it was time to get some exterior views. The Alhambra has a stunning setting on a hillside above the city with the Sierra Nevada mountains rising behind. Surprisingly, the view is blocked from many of the narrow streets of the Albaicin district, which is situated just across the valley. There are, however, a few spectacular public viewpoints. One of the best — and busiest — is the Plaza of St Nicholas. You can see it in the following photo, taken from a balcony on the Alhambra:

The white tower is the Church of St Nicholas and the plaza can be seen in front of it — where all of the people are gathering. It seems to always be a busy spot, but especially around sunset as I found out on a second visit a few days later. The first time I arrived on the plaza it was nearly noon and it was still fairly bustling.

The sun was high and there were dense clouds on this day, so when we returned to Granada after a few days of exploring the Tropical Coast, I took advantage of a couple of free hours to re-visit the plaza to catch sunset. The crowds were much thicker but I managed to stake out a spot with my tripod, right along the wall and I captured this view of last light:

I’ll leave you with one more glimpse — the last that I had of the Alhambra as I made my way back down the narrow streets of the Albaicin on my way back to my hotel. I came to a small plaza with this view of the fortress palace just after the lights had come on and the sun was tinting the contrails pink. Not a bad way to say goodnight to an amazing piece of architecture, and history.

The Alhambra, Day 2

It’s always great to get a second chance to photograph a place. The first visit is about discovery and it’s sometimes overwhelming as you try and take everything in. The return visit is often more about details or things you just didn’t see the first time. Different light conditions and weather can also dramatically change how a place looks and feels.

My second day in Granada, Spain, began with a return visit to the Alhambra. This time the first stop was the Palace of Charles V — a building I had bypassed entirely on my first visit. The main space is circular and ringed by a colonnade. Around the periphery are smaller rooms like this one with the staircase (This is actually three photos stitched together in Photoshop):

It was hard to get the main courtyard all in-frame and to show it full circle. I went to my rarely used fisheye for this shot and actually like the distortion it creates. I had used this lens in a circular Art Deco church in Tulsa in April, and realized that the distortion is less confusing in round spaces. One of those little tidbits I’ll file away for future shoots. You never know when you’ll find yourself in a round room, right?

After the Palace of Charles V we followed much the same path on this visit as I had taken on Day 1. Here are just a few more shots of things I saw differently this second time around:

This next photo really shows the advantage of visiting at different times of day. I had photographed this room the afternoon before but the light was not coming through the stained glass as it did this following morning. The patches of colored light on the wall add an altogether different feel to the image and tells more of the story of what’s going on outside of the frame.

More Granada to come…

New book and other announcements

The latest book in my “Journals of a Travel Photographer” series is now available in the Blurb bookstore. Here’s a direct link, or you can visit the store page on my own website for links to this and other books in the series. The Spain book features images from an 8-day trip I made to the Extremadura region of Spain last year. It was my first trip to Spain and I immediately fell in love with the historic cities and Roman ruins found throughout the region. Check out the preview on the Blurb site for more. A Spanish-language version may be following soon.

The Extremadura book has actually been out for a couple of weeks, but I have been late in announcing it here on the blog due to a second trip I just made to Spain — this time to the province of Granada. I also plan on releasing a “Journal” book about this trip in a few months. Several blog posts will feature highlights over the coming days and weeks, as well. For a bit of a preview, however, you can check out my interview that was published in the Tamron e-newsletter last week:

The story features a few of the photos I made on the Granada trip using the Tamron 18-270mm VC PZD lens. I have also recently received their SP 150-600MM F/5-6.3 Di VC USD for testing — stay tuned for some future posts featuring images from that lens.

So there’s plenty on the way in the coming weeks. I just wanted to make sure I got this plug in for the Extremadura book before inundating you all with images from my more recent Granada trip.

Trujillo, Spain

The last overnight during last November’s tour of the Extremadura region of Spain was in Trujillo — birthplace and home to Francisco Pizarro, conqueror of Peru. That’s his statue in the Plaza Major above. We arrived just as the sun was going down and hurried to squeeze in a walking tour of the town while the light held out. We wound our way up switch-back streets, on our way toward an old fortress that provided outstanding views as the sun set.

Above, the interior of the thirteenth-century church of Santa María la Mayor with its altarpiece by Fernando Gallego. The church was fairly dark when we entered, but our guide demonstrated a box on the wall where you could insert coins to get the interior lighting to come on for a few minutes. An energy-saving feature and fund-raiser all in one!

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The next morning I awoke early (thanks partially to a temporally-confused rooster outside my window) and took one last walk through the ancient streets before catching my ride back to Madrid.

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I hope you’ve enjoyed these posts documenting my trip to the Extremadura region of Spain. Many of these images will soon appear in another book in my “Journals of a Travel Photographer” series (you can see other titles in the series here). I’ll post a link here as soon as it’s available but here is a sneak peek of the cover:

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Street scenes from Merida, Spain

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I showed some of the Roman ruins in my last post, but there’s much more to Merida, Spain — including some very walkable streets. Here are a few shots that I found during a couple of free hours I had to explore the city:

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Roman ruins, Merida, Spain

The Temple of Diana, just one of the many Roman ruins scattered about Merida, Spain. Founded in 25 BC as “Emerita Augusta,” this is an old city with layers and layers of history. Here are just a few examples, all in easy walking distance of the city center.

The Arcade of the Forum.

The Roman Theater in Merida. I liked the contrast of the human and marble figures in the second shot.

Statuary inside the Museum of Roman Art, just across from the Roman Theater. The architecture of the museum is nearly as interesting as the building’s contents.

And, finally, two shots of the Miraculous Aqueduct — one of three in Merida. The quantity and scale of the ruins in Merida are stunning. There is plenty else to see in the city (I’ll share more images in my next post), but the Roman sites are easily reason enough for a visit. Learn more here.

Balcony views

I thought I’d follow up on my last post with a few shots from my room at the Parador de Guadalupe. As I mentioned before, we stayed in Paradores most of our nights in Spain and they never disappointed. Each is unique architecturally, food/service was excellent, and you just couldn’t beat their locations. However, of all of them I encountered, I think I was most taken with the balcony view from my room in Guadalupe. I had very little time to spend in the room, but both sunset and sunrise found me out on the balcony, photographing that view. Sometimes you have to really work hard to find the right location — the perfect angle — and sometimes it’s just handed to you.

Here is a view of my room and a stitched panorama of the overall view from my balcony:

These were taken just after checking in and before taking a tour of the monastery, seen in the right of the panoramic image. By the time I got back to the room, the clouds were more defined and the sun was beginning to set, so out I went on my balcony:

I settled on this view (above) with my full-frame Nikon D700 and locked it down on the tripod to get a series of shots as the light changed. I was hoping that, at some point, some exterior lighting might come on to contrast with the cobalt blue skies that I expected just after sunset. The sun was actually going down to the left of this scene so, while my one camera body was occupied with the monastery, I shot variations of the sunset itself with my D7000:

The D7000 shots were hand-held so I had to increase my ISO to achieve a faster shutter speed. I knew that would result in more noise, but I was less concerned about that in these shots than in my primary images that I was shooting with the D700.

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The coloration was less interesting at first, but the clouds were fairly dramatic. Converting some of these early shots to black and white (using Lightroom 5 and/or Photoshop CC) was a nice solution. The next series of images shows the gradual darkening of the sky and the subtle warm colors that began to emerge from the street lights that were bouncing back to illuminate the towers.

While there never were any floodlights or other exterior illumination on the monastery, the bounced street lights were enough to add quite a bit of warmth as the evening got darker. The shot above was taken well after dark and the intensity of the colors shown here was not visible to the eye. Only the long exposure was able to draw it out, softening the sky at the same time by the blur of the moving clouds. I was using 30-second exposures at this point.

The next morning I resumed my position for sunrise and caught a few pre-dawn images with a beautifully clear sky:

One last shot of the monastery just before sunrise with the main courtyard of the Parador seen in the foreground. Once the sun broke over the mountains, the light was actually a little too harsh for my taste and several of the towers were casting harsh shadows on one another. It was time to pack up the gear anyway before grabbing a quick breakfast and heading off to our next stop: Merida, Spain.

You can learn more about the Parador de Guadalupe on their website, which I notice has been redesigned just in the last couple of weeks. Lots of good info there if you’re planning a visit in Spain.

Royal Monastery of Santa Maria de Guadalupe

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As we continued our circuit through the Extremadura region of Spain, our next stop was Guadalupe. The centerpiece of this town is the Royal Monastery of Santa Maria de Guadalupe, originating in the 13th century and associated with Columbus’ first voyage to the New World in the late 15th century. The monastery’s architecture evolved over that time and on into the 17th and 18th centuries. From the exterior (which you’ll see more of in the next post) the result is a crazy combination of towers and spires in all shapes and sizes. The interior spaces are equally exuberant and even more detailed:

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The main church is dark, but exceedingly grand. Exploring further, styles change to brighter and more elaborate decoration:

The Monastery buildings also house museums for textiles, paintings, sculpture and more:

We left the Monastery just as the sun was setting and crossed the street to our Paradore. The views of the Monastery from the Paradore were stunning and I spent the rest of the evening, and well into the night, photographing the towers from my balcony. I’ll share some of those images in my next post.

Cáceres, Spain

We spent two nights in Caceres, Spain – the only time on the trip that we would have more than one night in one place. Even so, having a full day in this city was not enough. The old, walled portion of the city alone (a UNESCO World Heritage Site) is worthy of several days of exploration.

We arrived after dark so a pre-breakfast walk on my own was my first real chance to see this ancient city. I took a map with me, but enjoyed just wandering and getting lost a little, too.

A quick tour of the Atrio Hotel and Restaurant revealed the dual roof-top pools (above left). And the peacock that seemed to live next door (below).

Some things, I have no explanation for (above).

In the afternoon, we had a cooking demonstration at the Restaurante El Corregidor. Next time you fix wild boar at home, it should look something like this (above). Then, a few free moments to find a spot to try and catch the last light on the towers of Caceres:

The Parador in Caceres was another stunner. This one built inside a Renaissance Palace. Here are a couple of quick shots from my room, so that you know I wasn’t suffering too much:

I could have stayed much longer in this city, but there was more of Extremadura to see…

Michael C. Snell photography blog

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