 Today's episode is sponsored by Squarespace. Well, this is a new one for me. Call me the Undertaker, because this was an undertaking for sure, or whatever the Undertaker does. Me and nine other photographers who actually possess real talent, unlike me, were recently commissioned by the tourism board of Southern Spain to travel abroad, spread out, and photograph this beautiful region known as Andalucía, sometimes spelled with a C, sometimes spelled with an S. I'll let you know if I ever figure out which one's correct. How do you say no to this project? A chance to see beautiful landscapes, architecture, and meet the people that inhabit this region? All that was really asked of me was to produce four photos a day. Okay, no problem. Four good photos, though? Well, that'd be a first in my career, but I was up for the challenge. I've never actually been to Spain myself, but it's always been on the list because I already know the language. Mi español es muy abondigas. For this project, I enlisted the help of my partner Monica, a highly trained director of photography slash assassin with more confirmed kills than that charged Panera lemonade. She would be assisting me throughout the journey, though, let's just be honest here for a second. Choose really more in it for the food and wine than actually spending time with my photography clown ass. Whatever, let's start wherever good adventure begins, getting the hell out of LAX or whatever regional airport you use. What's up? Made it to Espana. Probably pretty jet lag, but I feel good at the moment. Oh yeah, I haven't had water in like 16 hours, so I should probably do that before I actually die. Tomorrow we have an event here in Malaga. Malaga. What words do I know in Spanish? Bueno? No, it's about it. That's probably all I need to know. What camera do you bring along for a commission project? Well, I don't know. This was a first for me. I needed something quality, but also light because we'd be moving around quite a bit. So I chose the Holga. Yeah, right, I'd kill myself. I decided on the Leica M6 because it would work pretty well with a lot of the places that we'd be going, paired with the Conica 21 to 35 millimeter, so I'd have two focal lengths at my disposal at any time without having to, you know, swap the lenses out or anything like that. The idea was this was gonna be kind of the quick snapshot camera. In fact, the night we arrived in Malaga, we wanted to go out and see what's cracking on the streets, you know, besides roasted chestnuts because it was December. Ultimately, I wanted to warm up my photography a little bit before we go into full production mode. You know how it goes. Your first roll on location isn't really always gonna be your best, so let's just get it out of the way. I popped in some Cinestell 800T and threw on a different lens. The Voigtlander 35 millimeter 1.5, that was all on loan for me by my friend Mr. Beers and Cameras, or just one, depending on what context you know I'm from. The 1.5 aperture would definitely come in handy. It's much faster than the Conica's F4. I was sitting right there in this chair and she was getting on my ass about getting up and going. Well, then you've been taking a while to get your stuff in. There's a really layered cinematic shot. Oh, I'm sorry. Yep, even Monica wanted a piece of my thick, juicy-at-ction. I lent her my Minolta pointe shoot and she pre-loaded some Kodak gold. Whose photos would look better? I think we all know. What are the odds? I actually took some solid shots in my first few frames, like this one of the Master of Gelato that apparently was so good no one was there. Anyway, when I was done being a condescending jackass, we went to this Christmas light display that was clearly trying to break the record for largest electricity bill on earth. And I felt like I was starting to not suck at photos. This shot is even pretty good. And you're the best from that evening. I basically just posted up camera at the ready with this image in mind and then stood around for basically half an eternity for someone to come and place themselves in the composition. And yeah, it totally paid off. Anyway, after the intense light show started and they announced to everyone's horror that someone in the crowd would die tonight, we got the hell out of there. That day we met up with everybody else on the project, nine other superstar photographers with bucket loads of skill and passion for their work, which really further deepened the mystery of why the hell I was there. Master photographer. This was sort of a, I guess, a special project announcement event that took place at this automotive museum and I guess was even on TV for a split second. I can't wait to see him just bomb this. After totally understanding everything that was going on around me, it was time to publicly humiliate myself yet again. After all, it was my own fault for being born with the last name that couldn't fully fit on screen. I'm hoping to capture the romance of the on-the-office architecture in the landscape of the flamingos. Bye. After the presentation that was critically panned for my important performance, it was time for headshots, sniper style. Just kidding, I wish. While I'm typically on the other side of the camera, I searched deep down for my best tortured squidward look and gave it my all. After that, we were released into the wild to make beautiful fine art or fart if you abbreviate to save time like I do. Every photographer at this point would spread out and go on their own itinerary to document the region in their own way. Taylor Josh, Monica, and I had some free time before we took off, so we decided to go for a walk and shoot a little bit in some uncooperative weather. I still had Cinestill 800T in the M6, but it was now a daytime, so in a surprising turn of events, I shot it at 400. Filming within filming, stealing my shot. With the batteries conveniently dying on my M6, we ran into two London-based street photographers, Mike and James. But enough about Mike and James. That evening, it was time for Monica and I to get swept off and begin our journey throughout the region, but first, a jet-lagged power map. Our first stop would be the city of Cordova, but we'd have to wait until the next day to get to work, though I did pop one off in the lobby real quick. Of the 36 exposures on the Cinestill 800T, I'd say 18 were keepers and two or maybe three portfolio shots. It's not bad for a warm-up roll. Squeaky boots. They're only for the best fried cooks. I thought that was a drinking fountain. Next up was Porty 800. I didn't really know what to expect the next day, but Portrait 800 always delivers. I mean, it better for that price. This is Jaime. He's the visionary director of a documentary him and his crew were making about the overall project. That crew gets a day with each of the 10 photographers and I was being thrown into the flames on day one. Jaime and his team would be following us around the next day to get some behind-the-scenes footage. Regardless, it was totally necessary to make him as uncomfortable in front of the camera as I would be the next day. Like, I'm on the other side. As long as we're introducing new characters, this is Alfred. He'd be our driver the next few days and no, that's not a Batman joke, though I do have a debilitating fear of bats. Alfred is a total homie and he made this whole project 200 times more fun for us. You said you wanted to close out. Can I buy you a drink? Damn. It's raining. So probably shoot a lot of black and white, but also it's the first real day of photography shooting here in Spain. There's also gonna be a documentary crew following me around, which will be something new for sure. It's also a bank holiday, so there's gonna be a lot of people on the streets. Don't do a few places today. Hopefully gonna bust out the Mamiya 7. Yeah, worth mentioning. I also brought the Mamiya 7. I figured it would absolutely pair well with the M6 as both are light and both are range finders capable of producing top quality images, you know, provided the user knows what they're doing. So I don't know, maybe I'm the problem. Anyway, not off to a bad start. This photo is great. Portrait 800 can really bring out the warmth, even on a rainy day. The first location was absolutely stunning. A little patio that was covered in beautiful flowers. These patios are shared by several neighbors and they all go in to decorate it and make it beautiful. They even have competitions in the area to see which patios can dominate the others in some sort of gladiator style battle for the death, I assume. Production for the dock was well underway and it was easy. It was just like filming a YouTube video, except they weren't crying behind the camera every take. So actually not like my YouTube videos at all. Though it was a little bit weird to be loading film in front of a crowd, but I totally nailed it on the 850th take. I thought you wanted real life. While the birds were singing the songs of their people or, I don't know, racial slurs maybe, I don't speak bird. I managed to slip away between setups and pan out some photos like this one on Cinestill 800T in the Mamiya 7. These patios were incredibly magical to be in. The ambiance of plant life was very calming. I could easily imagine myself just sitting here one morning and drinking a coffee or an adios motherfucker while smoking a cig. This moment where I turned back dramatically was totally improvised. I thought it added some, you know, depth to my tortured character, a spiritual longing for something lost in my dark past, a passion to create art in a better future. Anyway, they told me my face didn't look good so I stopped doing that. That next location was the Botanical Gardens, a spot that I had particularly requested. I know that you can go to any Botanical Gardens in any city ever, but I don't know. How often do you get to go to a Botanical Gardens in Spain? And I guess if you live there, probably whenever the hell you want. It's reflective texture and the lighting was soft and just overall kind of diffused. Even more diffused when we went inside the greenhouses. This is Rocio. Should be joining our little trio for the next couple of days to lay the law down and, you know, make sure we were getting our shit done instead of, you know, 24 hour tapas. Next, we headed into the city center to visit the Mesquite. A famous mosque slash cathedral featuring early Islamic architecture and design. It was originally built in the year 785, so a very, very long time ago. Not so long ago that dinosaurs were still around though. I double checked with the attendant. This mosque was actually converted to a cathedral when the city of Cordova was captured during the Reconquista in the 13th century. So it features a nice blend of the Islamic and Renaissance themed architecture. So that's great and all, but there was one issue. Like my future inside, it was incredibly dim. Color did seem like the right choice. There was warm kind of bounce lighting everywhere, but I'm not exactly shooting a total speedy piss missile of a lens with the Mamiya 7. So I had to hover around like one 15th of a second most of the time with portrait 800 in the camera. And it worked out mostly. I like these shots a lot actually. They're warm, they're brown and, you know, flat. I'll avoid the obvious diarrhea joke because we were in a spiritual place, but you get the idea. At a certain point, I wised the fuck up and replaced the portrait 800 with Delta 3200 black and white just so I could, you know, ease off the one 15th shutter speed and stop holding my breath every time I took a photo because I was getting dizzy, which honestly was kind of fun. Of the 10 shot roll of portrait 800 in the Mamiya 7, I got eight keepers and maybe four portfolio shots. I don't know. They're all similar in concept. So I might have to get tough on myself and vote some off the island. Not like anything weird like Epstein's Island, just like, you know, a normal regular hypothetical island. This is yet again where I had the opportunity to practice a new photography technique called patience where I set up the shot and waited around for people to either leave the frame or enter the frame in a, you know, pleasing way. All that being said, I would say a lot of the Delta 3200 shots were kind of loose repeats of the portrait shots, except now in black and white and thus not as spectacular in my own opinion. Only about two shots on this roll were actual keepers and no portfolio shots. Before I left the Mesquita, I whipped out the Leica M6 and power loaded some 250D. The colors of the surrounding architecture and, you know, the stylings seemed like it would be a good fit for some ECN too. But forget I said anything about the 250D for now, because I wouldn't end up shooting it until the next day. The prior 36 exposure roll, Portra 800 yielded 15 keepers and one, maybe two portfolio shots. Okay, so this location was tricky to say the least. It was the place that we were saving for sunset, but as you can see from the footage, it was very blah. The location was ruins of an old city from the 10th century. I believe a city that was pillaged, not even like a hundred years after it was founded. I believe that they were still uncovering and reconstructing it to some degree. What we see today is only like 10% of the city. Most of it is still buried. It was only recently discovered in the 20th century. If my memory serves me, correct. It's not really the typical thing I would shoot. I mean, sure, it's abandoned and there's no graffiti. But if there were some sort of hypothetical Pinterest board to sum up this location, I think the tones would be just rock and cement. So I did kind of feel like I was a little bit cornered here photographically. I could shoot black and white, but even that might be a little bit duller than usual for this location. But after some wandering around, I started to think a little bit for the first time in my life, which opened up a new world of possibilities for me. I remember reading some article, a long time ago, so long ago that I'll never be able to find the article again about archeologists working somewhere in the jungle. I seem to recall it being the Yucatan. They had at one point used infrared film to kind of survey the land and look for ancient structures maybe hidden or buried amongst the jungle. So I started thinking, well, okay, well, what if I use the air crumb look here to kind of kill two birds with one stone? Not only is it gonna be used for a similar reason as the researchers used it, but it would also add violent pops of color to an otherwise kind of colorless set. Happy to report, I think these look really good and they bring a sense of vibrancy to the area. Now, is false color infrared what the tours and board wants to show? Probably not. If you hire me for a job, I'm gonna do some weird shit. Need a website fast? Let me introduce you to your new best friend, Squarespace. Squarespace is an all-in-one website building platform that features the ability to truly unlock your creative potential. 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If you're ready to build a website, you can start a free trial today at squarespace.com slash grainy days. And if you use the code grainy days at checkout, you can get 10% off your first purchase. After that, it was a wrap on filming for the dock, you know, at least for me, this crew would head off that night to go work with other photographers who actually behave like professionals. So they were probably very excited. Anyway, we left that night after acquiring one Rocio to go and headed to a small town called Baesa, where the streets are narrower than my over-tightened sphincter. Bathroom check. At least there's one to throw up in. At dinner, the night before, we were tipped off about some potentially foggy conditions the next morning due to the town being at kind of a high elevation. So we busted our asses out of bed and went to go shoot some moody conditions. Okay, so yeah, this is kind of an odd one. This entire role of HV5 blanked out in the Mamiya 7. There's literally nothing but key code info on the roles which makes all sense to me because the roles before were fine and spoiler alert, all the roles after would also be fine. I suppose it's possible that it was too cold that morning and the internals of the MAM7 just didn't wanna work but I find that kind of hard to believe because I have been in colder situations with it and it was fine. I guess we can just chalk it up to it being early and the 7 hadn't had its coffee yet and was in a pissy mood with its nipples freezing off because honestly, same. Regardless, here's some of Monica's shots to hold you over. Luckily for me, the fog wouldn't soon burn off. In fact, it would actually descend down into Bayezah. So I hit the group chat and we went for another stroll through town. This time with the Leica M6 that is always up for the job and some Vision 3 250D. And honestly, some of the best photos from the project. The environment just set everything up perfectly, you know, small town street photography with atmosphere. Me and my double chin were in heaven. I waited shooting Lomo Redscale in these exact conditions. I ultimately concluded the tourism board probably wasn't very interested in making Bayezah look like a fiery red inferno hellscape. At this point, I had pretty much just rifled through the 250D and in its place, I loaded some HP5 that I'd be pushing to 1600 to really bring out the, you know, contrast and grain. Of the 36 exposure to 250D, I got 16 keepers and three or four portfolio shots. Not bad, Jason, but you can do better. Rocio is actually originally from this region, the next town over. And she told us this level of fog here was quite uncommon. She'd never really seen it stick around at this long before. I say this way. Best case scenario, Bayezah. That's how you say it, I think. After a tiny bit of off-roading to wake our asses up through shock, we headed into the neighboring town of Ubeda. It's a Sito Un Cafe. Ubeda was great, but I was struggling to find some photos here which seems to be a consistent theme in my approach. This photo is good enough, I think. There's certainly shadow detail lost because of the pushed HP5 though. So I do wish we could see a little bit more of this couple. This shot isn't too bad either. You know, going wide on street isn't my natural inclination, but I think it worked out well here to make the scene look like a little more three-dimensional. And then again here to show scale. Is it my best work? I wouldn't say so, but it's certainly not bad. After that, we had lunch and a long drive south to Montefrio. And I didn't really look yet like the weather was gonna clear up for us. The sun kind of backlighting the castle over the time. We tried to find an elevated point to get the shot. Contrasty black and white seemed like maybe the only option here. Throw in the yellow filter just for the f*** of it. After getting harassed by local dogs at viewpoint one, we headed down a little bit and found a totally awesome way to get a clear vantage point. Though Monica was seemingly a little bit more focused on getting a shot of my ass. After that, we made our way to, I guess, vantage point two as Blue Hour was setting in. Though with the clouds in general and no lighting situation, Blue Hour might as well just been all day, but there's no fart without struggle. Of course, at that point, it might just be sh***. I did take this photo twice. It's just too good of a shot to run the risk of not getting it. One is candid and the other is Rocio. Which I think I liked better if nothing else other than for the mood. We did eventually head into the, I guess, hilly central neighborhood of Montefrio for a minute afterwards. I had several shots left of pushed HP5 and the M6 and I wanted to wrap them up. Rocio was very kind and offered to carry my bag. So of course I made it as heavy as possible to teach her a lesson about being nice. I also switched to the low light Boylander. The final shot of this role is a total winner. I only had a split second to take it and I didn't even bother metering. So I guess I got lucky. After that, the day was over. We had conquered what we could which mostly meant black and white for me. We pulled into a small highway adjacent stopover town for the night and just kind of took it easy. Good start to the day. Great finish. You only cried four times. I'm excited to see those shots. Now Monica is gonna tell you about her day. I filmed Jason a lot. Oh no, I'm sorry. I ran after Jason a lot. Sometimes the scene just calls to you, Monica. I know and you follow the call and I follow you. One of these days I'm gonna drop this camera on my face and probably die. Yeah, you're pretty tired. It might be tonight. Should I just end it all right now? We're kind of ahead of schedule so we're gonna try and do some more stuff that wasn't really on the itinerary tomorrow. I've shot many, many roles of film. Like three. You can't even count it three. So what is this thing? I'm not super sure. It apparently lets out air from underneath the dam or something like that and something else about how it's old Roman technology. I don't know, I couldn't find any info about it which made it just as mysterious and moody as these photos would be on Delta 3200 that I decided to very intelligently load outside in the rain instead of the van. Regardless, it would all be worth it. These are some of my favorite shots from the trip. The rain and the atmosphere with the dotted hits of street lights make everything look kind of like an old noir film. This role was one of the roles that was stolen from me after it was developed. It's a whole saga. We don't need to get into it here but eventually it was returning me through some mysterious turn of events and I can't help but think about what I could have potentially lost because these shots are pretty great. The 10-shot role of 3200 in the MAM7, I got about six keepers and one or two definite Port McFolio shots. These were super moody and I actually love them all. They could all be favorites. It's just hard to pick which ones I love more. It's sort of like parents fighting over custody but like more important because it's my art. I also loaded in some Sinisterl 800T here hoping that the blue hour overcast look would come through on a tungsten film but that way it would also get those nice hits of halation for some added color contrast. Though I do like the color, black and white is really where it's at here. Like a cow, it really brought the mood. Damn, I impress myself with these jokes sometimes. Some sunlight, not that I knew what to do with it but damn, you gotta admire my effort. These photos are okay, I don't know. They're just your usual nice view of a city landscape kind of shot. I asked Alfred to stop here because the lighting would be at a nice angle, you know, splashing ever so softly onto the facades of the castle. Forget photography, maybe poetry is my thing. Sometimes I can totally rip a fat haiku when I'm in the zone. Anyway, a nice view doesn't make a good photograph though. I've said it 10,000 times and still haven't learned a damn thing apparently but maybe, just maybe, a nice view with Aerochrome does. This shot is good, I really like it. The flaming hot Aerochrome tones aren't too overpowering. I don't know, maybe that's the key after all. You know, just dial it back a little. There's also this abandoned building that I instinctually had to pop off a shot for Caleb, my abandoned building co-shooter. Think of it like pouring one out for your homies. Anyway, it was time to hit the beach. I believe Salabrania is a known beach town and in the summer it would be totally flocked with people trying to go through photosynthesis or, you know, whatever beachgoers do. Think of it kind of like the Jersey Shore maybe except, you know, like classy and a hundred times less tetanus. The ocean looks nice and juicy right now. Nice and juicy. Ongoing beef with midday lighting is well documented on this channel. I think I got a few shots off that aren't bad but I didn't really care. The sun was shining and the ocean was beautiful and a guy on a moose even showed up for a photo. That's freaking magical. Love a good boat shot, especially when the colors work well. This shot is layered more than a beefy five layer burrito from Taco Bell, which I'm pretty sure is a crime to say out loud here in the land of food that doesn't make you sh** your pants instantly. Another great shot, layered to perfection. The pop of red on this couple contrasted nicely with the warm blue ocean in the back and then of course, you know, the bombers overhead. It was definitely hiding a UFO. Okay, so here's where I was truly in Spain without the S. I don't know. I guess every artist has to suffer at some point and it was time for me to pay that toll. So what happened? I loaded up some Kodak Portrait 800 and it shot some beautiful color photos. Probably the best color work of my career but I guess we'll never know because guess who left the yellow filter on the lens from the previous roll of black and white? Yeah, the color photos were pretty f***ed up looking. I just converted them to black and white in post and even then there was only like two photos that I even wanted to show. The Mamiya 7 is a rangefinder camera so you're not actually, you know, seeing through the lens when you take a photo that's how a mistake like this could be made pretty easily. Does that mean that this is going to be the beginning of my digital camera character arc this year? I don't know. I could have just looked down at the front of my camera at least once and figured it out. So it was Portrait 800, my favorite black and white film stock. I don't know, not really but I'm open to trying it again. After that tragedy we headed back inland towards Granada where Alfred and Rocio were tired of us so they dumped our asses on the street and took off. You think we've been off-roading all day but nah. Luckily the lighting was getting pretty good and Rocio actually told us about a small kind of hidden overlook that would give us a great vantage point over the city at sunset. That day was a bank holiday as well so apparently literally everyone and their grandmas were in town. Finally have some sun and your boy, he ain't gonna waste it. We're gonna be shooting Portrait 800 here in beautiful Granada. I was pretty excited about these shots, obviously. Sunset on Portrait 800 was cool and all or should I say warm and all but blue hour on 800T is basically a cheat code at this point. I like this shot a lot. The blue tones are nice. Good foreground, background action and the subjects are I guess interesting albeit the photo's a little bit too ass focused. Was it the one? I don't know, it might be. It's quite good. All these shots were great, no complaints. Anyway, Granada was a madhouse that night. It seemed like everyone was out on the streets and it was becoming difficult to find the shot whilst sandwiched between like a hundred people. But some of these Christmas market exteriors were not so bad. I especially like this one. Anyway, we didn't really have much more time in Granada as we had to hit the road to our next destination and sadly we had to say goodbye to a member of our family, Rocio as she would be betraying us and joining another team. As a parting gift though, she had booked the three of us a definitely haunted roadside motel somewhere out in the country. Dark hallway. Next morning we were off to an early start to catch sunrise, which would really only last like five minutes, must have been its first time. Regardless, I was preparing for the best as I loaded some Kodak Ectochrome Panther 50 in the Mamiya 7, a rare expired film stocks sent to me from overseas or I guess semi locally because I was overseas at that time. I shot some Panther a couple months ago and I liked it enough to kind of give it a go here. 50 ISO though is slow, it's real slow. So I need to use a tripod to unlock all the apertures and shutter speeds effectively. We were just on the outskirts of a Game of Thrones ass looking city called Ethanayar. I think is how it's pronounced. I don't know. Alfred said it was tough for him to pronounce it too. I tried several different approaches but the lighting wasn't really all that stellar at any point. If I had a longer lens maybe I could have picked something up but here are my favorites from the role anyway. These bushes are actually pretty common in the region. They're olive trees that grow the type of olive used for olive oil. So I kind of figured using them in the foreground to some degree would be like a nice nod to the area at a different spot just outside the unpronounceable city. I power slammed some Portrait 800 in the Mamiya just about as hard as I slammed into the back of that van with a baby on board sticker that one time. I tried working several different compositions here but nothing was really taking off. It was a cool view but with no interesting lighting or color it was proving to be a little difficult. Down near the lake there was this tree that was either being lit up nicely by the sun or just I don't know, that perfect dead tree color. And I made it the subject of the photo with the city behind it. I think it looks nice. In those situations where it's early and the light is just barely peaking out for minutes at a time I kind of find myself running around trying to nab whatever I can. So yeah, I basically abandoned Monica and took off in a dead sprint due south with only my cameras and a pack of Pringles for survivor. All right, good morning. Here I am at the end of a very long road that has taken me about three years to traverse. I saw some ruins in the distance and there's no way the car can get down here so I just hiked it. I put in some Kempmere 400. I'm pushing to 1600 obviously. About there now, so let's check it out. Okay, there's like a big ass bird over here. I'm gonna try and get it in the shot. Ah, it flew away. Got the shot. Who knows how good it'll be. Kempmere rarely disappoints. With the light staying at a very nice angle for a little bit, we headed into Iguana or however it's pronounced and shot the streets a little bit. This town's signature look was definitely the blue vases kind of dotted everywhere that I shot on black and white for some reason. That's my signature look f**king up something completely obvious. Eventually I did get my s**t together and shot some 800T I'd left over in the M6 as I also began to master the entirety of the Spanish language. What are those? Not to really suck us out of the present entirely but of the 36 exposure roll of 800T in the M6, I got 20 keepers and dang, I don't know. Maybe five or six portfolio shots. I was on a roll because you know, like a roll of film. My humor is just too damn advanced for you sometimes. I decided to go with the 800T for color because there was a lot of greens and blues present in the scene, colors that actually pop really well on 800T plus 800T kind of more or less artificially add some red orange through halation which is a complimentary color to blue. So I figured if nothing else that color theory class I had to take in college wasn't complete horse s**t. This patio was super cool to see in person. The colors were just so vibrant. It's a semi popular location nowadays but we were there before the onslaught of people which I appreciated and so did Alfred. This city vista was just absolutely incredible. I couldn't risk missing this beautifully backlit shot so I took the photo on a variety of formats. I even tried to get greedy and nabbed the seating area in frame with the vista at like 21 millimeters on the conica. Did it work? Yeah, kind of, it's colorful but maybe too much of a downward angle for me to really, you know, commit it to the portfolio. These converging lines just shoot right at you through the screen. This hit of halation is pretty hot though. How is this place not like? And of course we couldn't leave without Monica snapping. Perhaps her favorite photo of the trip, a photo that has nothing to do with Spain whatsoever. This tower, okay. Bentanas is a window. Window, okay. Where are the windows of truth? Four windows to the wind. Three? So he's saying, he said here, four windows to the wind, yet three windows to the wind because I'm getting one. Is there, is there, that's ocean? No. South? Yeah, south. And then este, este and oeste, east, west. So he's doing like, yeah, the windows are phasing, you know. And then there should be, hurt. That's complicated, man. Who's whispering to the east, my friend. Is it yourself that you're coming dead? And the last one is who's, who is crying to the west, my friend. It's me that dead, I'm going to the memorial. So he says, for nothing in this tower, I would stay. I like it. Yeah. It's beautiful. It's a beautiful one. Anyway, Alfred was clearly impressed by my power stance while I waited for a photo that didn't turn out good. Okay, it was fine. I just didn't end up selecting it to showcase. So here's another example of setting up the shot and being ready to fire when something happens. That's something in this case, being a dog entering frame. And I managed to snap it at just the perfect time. Be normal. After some lunch and gas station hopping, we headed upwards to Torcalde Antiqueira for something a little bit different. And I was pretty excited. And apparently the autofocus on my camera was excited to as it decided to take the afternoon off. This place looks like an alien planet. No doubt about it. But how do we lean into that and make it look even more alien? Well, I figured shooting it on color and Fred would certainly do the trick. How do you make landscapes at the same location look different? I don't expect you to answer. But my answer is... So how does this even happen? Something ain't right about these rocks. They're kind of like that one friend you always keep an eye on. And maybe photograph occasionally from a safe distance. And if that one friend doesn't instantly come to mind, it's probably you. Basically, back in the good old ancient SpongeBob days, this whole area used to be underwater and then a process called erosion happened. Think of erosion like my hairline. As time goes on, it thins down what's there. And when the sea drained over the course of millions of years, it eroded these seabed rocks down into these like weird, curvy, kind of sexy shapes. Say I always find mud. Anyway, it was time to put the infrared away and do some serious, non-gimicky landscape. So black and white, I guess. My first masterpiece. This chill-ass guy posing for the shot. This place straight up looks like Star Wars Galaxy's Edge. Out on the trail, swinging around my usual BME, Big Mamiya energy. We eventually stumbled upon some goats. Dude, this is the perfect shot. I am so upset I don't have film on my camera right now. And I'm pleased to tell you, it was exactly like a goat stimulator. Sorry, correction. Goat simulator. I guess it just depends on how you play that game. Actually, these were not goats. They're ibex. What's the difference? Fuck if I know. One is good for petting zoos and the other isn't, I guess. So I'd be staying a decent ways away before I find out exactly why that is. Goat hunting. I don't know, two watermelons? Enough black and white for now. The light was starting to get pretty nice. So I Hulk smashed some absolutely filthy Lomo 800 in my camera. No yellow filter. I guess we're about to go in there. I might've just taken what was maybe one of the best shots of my career. Strong layering and Iberian ibexes. Was it the best photo of my career? Nah, but it's good. The lighting and colors aren't really doing it for me, but it's a nice environmental portrait. God damn that rock looks like a penis. It wasn't very good, but it's okay. I wouldn't really say the color photos here worked out well. Some are fine. Maybe the lighting just wasn't quite there yet. You know, that orange pink hue that all we photographers crave. This photo is the best color photo from the location, I think. It's weird how I was so obsessed with finding the direct light and then this photo of, I guess essentially bounce light turned out to be the best. It's just got good colors and layering. Photo wise and, you know, bolder wise. Wait, you see Alfred? Of all places, the parking lot was getting lit up quite nicely, so I rushed a bit and loaded some 48 to grab what little light I could find and wrap up the day. With the M630 for more film, I decided to go with 800T, not really knowing exactly what the next day, our final day, would bring. But at the very least, I could grab a deeply underexploded shot of our hotel. The next morning, it was time to visit the famous Windows desktop. Not that one, this one. An old bridge completed in 1793 and it took about 34 years to finish. Apparently there was a bridge before this one that was less structurally sound and well, you know, it collapsed. If there's one thing I know about bridges, they probably shouldn't do that. I actually quite like this take on it, sort of a pre-dawn look on 800T, soft pastel light and colors. You ever get to a party early and no one is there yet? I do that all the time. So I knew from experience that's what this felt like. We ended up waiting about 45 minutes for the sunrise light to get there, ready to go, guns blazing once it hits. Hat orgy going on down there? Eventually it did, touched down and I took the shot. But honestly, I think the lines from the shadows make it kind of a jumbled and inconsistent mess. Got that. So from there, we hit the side streets looking to see what we can get while the light was gorge, literally. The 250D went pretty quickly. Of the 10 shot IMAX roll, I got five keepers and maybe one portfolio shot, maybe not. I don't know. After that, I had put in a roll of Lomo 800 and went to town, literally, because that was the direction we were headed. This roll was one of the rolls that was stolen later on down the line and then returned, which would have meant I missed out on this shot, which is solid. The atmosphere, the light, the colors are very moody and wonderful. It feels three dimensional. But good photography rarely doesn't come at a cost and the winder on the Mamiya 7, like date night, was stiffening up hard with each advance. Life really does like to throw you curveballs sometimes. In this case though, it would be an unhittable Randy Johnson 100 mile an hour fastball, high and tight. I decided to open up the Mamiya 7 in a high quality makeshift sweatshirt dark bag in the car to see what had happened. Apparently the Mamiya 7 rolled a fat roll, so goddamn chunky that it got stuck in the camera and I had to apply a Newtonian metric load of force and the jaws of life maneuver to get the damn thing out. After that, the roll was fine. I put it in a dark box with a rubber band and hope for the best. Luckily, I did not lose any shots. Smurfs? Smurfs? No. But because it was my generation. We eventually stopped at our next location, a small village up in the mountains that totally blew itself. This would present a little bit of a challenge for me. It's not exactly a strict rule of mind, but I don't really try and shoot the color blue in my work. I like shooting film because it leans warm oftentimes and that's a look that I really go for in my work. But obviously the subject of anything I shoot here would involve the color blue. So I just decided to lean into it a little bit. I still had 800T in the M6, which would work well with the colder colors. But in the Mamiya 7, I threw in some Fuji Pro 400H that had been cryogenically frozen for times like these. In my own opinion, a lot of the Fuji films handle the green and blue spectrum of colors quite elegantly. So I was excited to see what I'd get. And if it sucks, I guess I could just throw myself off a bridge because this film stock has discontinued and it's becoming hard to find nowadays. These first few shots weren't quite hitting yet. I don't want to make excuses, but that's exactly what I'm gonna do anyway. It was our last day of production. I had been shooting for basically five days straight and I was just maybe running out of creative gas. Eventually I did get my act together and started looking for little stray pieces of light splashing onto the buildings in a nice way. And I got some work that I actually quite like. This shot on 800T is gangsta as fuck. And whoever was disposing of a body next to us thought so too. Why exactly is this town Smurfass blue instead of the typical white scene around the region? Well, turns out it's actually quite literally because of the Smurfs. It was some sort of advertising campaign through Sony when the first Smurfs movie came out in 2011. A thousand gallons of paint later, and well, here we are. I guess the whole town thought it was quirky enough to keep around as well, so they did just that. And now the town stands as one giant shrine for the Smurfs. And yeah, Monica hasn't finished her role in Phoenix yet, that's why you can't see the photos. I guess she doesn't really subscribe to the spray and pray technique of photography that I do. And just for the fuck of it to see what would happen to the colors, I busted out the infrared. So I think the Pro 400H is better in this case. It was a cool experiment nonetheless. Of the 20 shots of Pro 400H between the two roles I got maybe 11 or 12 keepers and two portfolio shots at least. Technically the second role wasn't even done yet. At our second to last location, I'll be honest, I was feeling pretty burned out creatively. That mixed with the fact it was yet again another bank holiday and the location was super crowded. Made me feel quite apathetic towards my work. I did wanna try something new so I threw in some retro-chrome 400, loading it in direct sunlight because yada, yada, yada, something about nothing matters and life is bulls***ingly. Retro-chrome is definitely not everyone's favorite look but just deal with it. I also like aeroplanes. So if you hate both, the next few minutes will probably be your worst nightmare. Mmm. Satanel is quite an old city dating back to the 12th century, I believe, but possibly and likely even older than that. Like 25,000 years ago, caveman is. That has nothing to do with that. This shot is probably the best from the set. Great colorful subject and interesting environment. What more can you ask for? I guess I could have asked for a little more latitude for retro-chrome but hey, what can you expect? It's hella expired ectochrome. Of the 24 exposure roll of retro-chrome, I got 10 keepers and no portfolio shots. Not my best performance but I'm used to disappointing women so I'll get over it. That was kinda it for the itinerary. We had done everything we set out to do and made our way back to home base, the city of Malaga, but sunset was quickly approaching and we needed one last hurrah to send this project out in style. So we visited the Alcazaba, an 11th century fort that overlooked the city, looking for any last shred of romance that we could find and then, you know, ruining it by shooting those signature s*** brown tones. I don't think that'll be good. What if it's your best shot ever? No. It's not the Ibex. Anyway, after realizing there's a canal system of water that flows throughout the entire Alcazaba and then following that system to the source, the urinals in the men's bathroom, we wrapped and called it on the project. You did it. You're done, man. My final photo would be a shot of my co-conspirator, Monica. Actually, no. That sounds like we're about to assassinate Lincoln or something. My co-pilot, Monica, who is a trooper and chased after me with a video camera the whole time. She doesn't really like this photo but I do so she's wrong. It's a wrap on production. Tomorrow flying to Madrid, Madrid to JFK, JFK to LAX. It's been a whirlwind. I finally adjusted to European time just in time to go home. Gonna go out tonight, party a little bit with some of the people from the program. It's always a weird one, something like this ends. Anyway, see ya. Six days straight of just shooting proved to be quite a challenge for me but I don't ever look back at it with fondness. I think I shot some good stuff that for once I'm actually quite happy with. Would I do anything differently? Yeah, maybe a few things here and there but you know what they say. Hindsight is too big of a bitch or something like that. If you're at all interested, the final tally on all the roles of film that I shot is gonna be listed right here. This was my first commission project and I was super grateful for the opportunity. I mean, how many commission projects will let you shoot color infrared and then not call you a hack? It's kind of hard to parse out my favorite images from this project. A lot of them hold some level of sentimental value so maybe I'm just a little too close to it. I think time will just give me a better perspective on it and eventually I'll be able to look back at it and objectively pick out which photos slap hard and which photos, I don't know, gently caress. Lando Lucia was absolutely breathtaking. From the landscapes, the architecture, the people, the blue Smurf sh** and the food. It is certainly a photographer's destination and I'll certainly be back for round two quite soon. I just need like five minutes and some orange juice.