aows #41

on timing over location and subject

Apr 28, 2022

on timing over location and subject

Just a few days ago, coming out of nowhere, a blizzard hit some of the mountains near where I am in Galicia.

The location is one I never thought of photographing — at least at this time of the year. There’s not much over there, besides a ski resort. But photography can sometimes be, in my opinion, more about the when and less about the what.

A snowstorm at the end of April is not something I was going to miss out on, so I booked a room at the resort for a couple of nights, and hoped for the best. It didn’t disappoint.

There was much more snow than I was expecting; and much more wind, and much more cold. It felt incredible, like a proper winter adventure. The kind of adventure I didn’t have the chance to experience this year.

Not only I had a lot of fun photographing in those conditions, but I also got to make a few images I really like. Again, not a place I’d travel to for photography in normal circumstances, but extraordinary conditions can be make any location and any subject look beautiful.

Lately, I’ve come to realize that this is a shift that had been happening in my photography for quite some time. I used to spend a lot of time looking for new places to visit on Google Maps; now I spend most of my time checking the weather forecast.

But, unfortunately for me -given that I love bad weather-, this blizzard was most likely the last I’ll get in the time I have left here in Spain — we leave for the US in just one month.

As the temperatures rise and the skies clear in the coming weeks, the things I’ll be looking for next are the night sky and the full moon.