Very Productive Easter!

I got back from my trip to Europe with which was a very successful and productive journey, covering around 2800 miles of driving, temperatures between 22 degrees C, down to around -4, and every type of weather the environment could throw at us - everything from warm sun to blizzard conditions!
Most of the trip was planned, and we had several locations we wanted to shoot, which one of us had been to in the past. During my time spent in Spain, I had scouted three fantastic locations I wanted to re-visit, and Dave had previously shot in France, so we had much of the journey planned and mapped out with an itinerary to cover all the places we wanted to go and shoot. We not only accomplished everything we set out to achieve, but even more so, since we also had time to shoot some additional material as an added bonus!
Most images from my European trip with Dave now available as prints (unless I feel the image will not print well small). Larger prints WILL BE AVAILABLE SOON or can be purchased directly from myself or =DaveAyerstDavies. Please don't hesitate to contact us if you are interested in purchasing any of these images as prints.
Here's what I've been up to over easter:

Wed 4th April, we set off for Dover in the afternoon to catch the ferry over to Calais, and then drove part of the way through France overnight, staying in a roadside hotel somewhere on the way to Bordeaux.

The following day, Thu 5th, we made it to location one, the dune where Dave has produced some wonderful results previously. We checked into a hotel, showered, and packed everything needed to shoot, and headed off for the dune in the afternoon to catch the sunset, and the warm light leading up to it. This dune is enormous, and climbing it is no mean feat, particularly when carrying heaps of photographic gear. But the fabulous setting it provides for photography is worth the effort, and we got some fantastic shots (but not before I dropped Dave's tripod head-first into the sand, so it will forever more be gritty with sand... sorry Dave!). We managed to find a spot on the dune which was comparatively undisturbed by people, despite this being a very popular tourist attraction. So aside from the occasional interruption while we waited for an audience to pass, we managed to shoot relatively undisturbed.


After a (slightly easier) climb back down again, we enjoyed an evening in France, (eating Italian food, ironically) before setting off the next day for a whole day's drive into Spain.

Fri 6th, we basically spent the entire day driving to our first location in Spain. We drove from France to Spain through the Pyrenees mountains, which are stunningly beautiful, and still snow-capped at this time of year. We took some video footage on the way, and stopped each time there was a beautiful view to enjoy, taking the occasional walk up the footpaths into the mountains.

It was a leisurely and beautiful drive to our second location, which we arrived at in the evening while it was still light. This location is an entire town destroyed by civil war in the 1930s; a unique opportunity to shoot, but also an incredibly moving place. The whole town has been left as a memorial, as it was the day it fell, claiming around 6000 lives. I had visited this location when working in Spain, and had wanted to shoot there ever since. What I hadn't taken into account, however, is that over Easter weekend, there were far more tourists visiting the location than when I had last been there in the middle of winter when it was practically deserted. We decided the only option was to do a dawn shoot there the following day, to try to avoid the majority of tourists. We used the opportunity, however, to do a thorough reconnoiter of the area, and decide exactly which locations to shoot the following day. It is a vast area, with two churches and an entire town, all seriously damaged by the civil war which took place there 70 years ago. A very moving experience.
We then drove to the nearest city to find beds for the night.

Sat 7th, we arrived at our location at dawn first light, and were relieved to see no one else parked there. However, despite our 'dawn raid' to try and shoot uninterrupted, there was another couple who unfortunately kept disturbing us (probably ghost-spotters, who were also trying to avoid the crowds and equally bemused to find anyone else there so early - the area is supposed to be haunted), this resulted in me having to dart behind pillars every so often to put my clothes back on and try to look innocent by the time the pair arrived on the scene! In the process of avoiding the ghost-spotters, there was another drunken Spanish pair, who had evidently used the ruined location for their night's drinking binge (very insensitive behaviour in my opinion), so we also had to keep out of their way.
Who would have thought there would be so many dawn visitors at an abandoned ruin?!
However, despite these limitations, and much darting behind pillars, we achieved some stunning results in a very unusual location. We took care to be sensitive to the surroundings, since I feel it would be inappropriate to forget the fact that people died here. What we achieved is a set of 'emotive' rather than aesthetic images, which I personally think are stunning. I will never forget what an amazing, moving experience this town is, and I hope the images reflect this appropriately. I was moved to tears at one point by the memorial that these ruins represent; the cost of war should never be forgotten...




Moving on from the ruined town, we then drove towards our second location, leaving the town (by which time it was raining) at about 10.30am. Due to a slight miscommunication with our sat-nav device, we found ourselves on a (very beautiful) mountain pass at 1600 meters above sea-level... at which point we hit a blizzard! Yes, I know this is April in Spain, but I do mean BLIZZARD! With virtually no visibility, and an increasingly skiddy road, we slowly navigated our way down the mountain pass, and then decided at about the half-way point that this opportunity was too good to miss, so we parked, and I leaped out of the car naked, to do a shoot in the snow (we didn't expect to get next year's Christmas images, but never pass up an opportunity when it presents itself!)


Despite getting some great pics, this move turned out to be potentially disastrous, since the car became stuck in the snow and mud, and we couldn't get the car moving again! Luckily, Dave (who is a bit of a farmer's boy, apparently) used to drive tractors out of the mud, and after a very tense, dramatic period of about ten minutes of sliding deeper into the slush, got us out of the snow and back onto the road... At which point, we very nearly lost control and hit another car! Just as we swerved out of control, there was another van heading directly for us, which couldn't stop either. Again, thank goodness Dave was driving and not me, as he knew to steer into the skid (I know in theory, but in practice, and I'm pretty sure I would have just panicked and ended up in a ditch), so we managed to avert disaster again (just).
We made it safely to the nearest town (Teruel) but the snow was still falling, and we weren't sure if it was safe to drive anywhere else that day. So we checked into a hotel, and waited to see what the weather would do.
Incredibly, by mid afternoon, the blizzard had passed, and the snow had stopped falling. So we were able to proceed with our original plan of shooting in the mountains. We drove back up the mountain pass, and got some more fabulous images in the sunshine (incredibly), while some of the snow was still un-melted.


Three shoots in one day, and everything from sun, fog, rain, and blizzard conditions, I was very relieved to sleep in my hotel bed that night!

Sunday 8th, we took another leisurely and beautiful drive to the last of our scheduled locations in Spain. This time, the location (which I had also scouted around a year ago) was a once luxurious, huge hotel, which has been abandoned I would guess at least 50 years, and has consequently gone to ruin over time. The place exists on no maps, and appears to have no name or history. I asked the locals when I last visited and am told it was once a spa-hotel, though why it was abandoned or how long ago remains a mystery. What is obvious, however, is that it was once a wealthy and thriving, beautiful hotel, with a huge open-court, and around 50 hotel rooms. It would have been absolutely spectacular in its time, and is now beautiful in a different way, as the gradual decay of time has left it roofless, and returning to nature. It is a superb location for a shoot, and we shot there undisturbed for several hours. This ruin has a very different atmosphere to our ruined town, since it has gradually been destroyed by time, rather than a violent destruction as a result of war. Consequently the images are far more aesthetic, and we had a beautiful sunny day to shoot too, so this set has a relaxed and warm feeling to it.


This was the last of our intended locations, and we had achieved everything we set out to achieve (and more so) a day ahead of our planned itinerary.
As we departed from this location, we found a rocky canyon pass, right by a road-side parking spot. The location looked too good to miss, so we climbed up into the canyons. Little did we know that behind the boulders was a beautiful natural waterfall, (probably a result of the melt water from the earlier snows) hidden from the road by the boulders. This was too good to be true, so we did another shoot in the canyon, with me climbing into the frozen waterfall! This produced yet another set of stunning images just before sunset, and we only finished shooting when we ran out of flash cards, having filled up all our memory cards that day.


We then continued towards Barcelona, on our drive back through France towards home, staying in another hotel en route.

Monday 9th, we drove back into France, and decided (since we were ahead of schedule) to stay in Narbonne, on the coast of France for the evening. Here we shot one final, relaxed shoot on the beach with some driftwood, before enjoying a meal and a rest for the night.


We made our way back to the ferry in Calais throughout the day on Tuesday 10th, even having time to stop at a French supermarket and convert the last of our Euros into alcohol (a currency accepted in every country) before catching the ferry home and arriving back late in the evening.

Once back in the UK, we couldn't resist adding to this vast collection of photographs with a few shoots in the Great British Countryside (which should never be underestimated), so just to prove that our own fair landscape is a match for Spain, we shot yet more images in the great outdoors in the week following our return.


All in all, this was a very successful trip, and I can't wait to share the images from these many shoots. We not only achieved everything we set out to, but also had the opportunity to shoot yet more gorgeous locations we found along the way. I even had time to do a little shopping, and bought some clothes from my favourite range (only available in Spain) from the only shop open over Easter - how fortuitous! Despite not booking a single hotel in advance, we always managed to find beds for the night, and in spite of the varied weather (if you don't like the weather in Spain, wait five minutes, as they say) arrived home in one piece with thousands of images in tow.
In all, there are several sets, each with hundreds of images, amounting to thousands in total. This will take some time to sort though, and it will be incredibly hard to choose favourites, because they all looked so good. (Though I do say so myself).
I will upload at least one image from each set and add the thumbnails to this journal entry as and when they are processed.
We also took video footage of most of the locations we visited. At some point, we'll edit this footage into a documentary of our European trip and put it online.
I've uploaded some of my own images of the locations into scraps, go and visit them there. I've also added a few thumbnails to my journal, and will complete it with images of my modelling in each location when I get them.

A thousand thank-yous to =DaveAyerstDavies for this wonderful trip to Europe to produce some stunning images; for averting disaster in a blizzard; for being a wonderfully talented photographer, and a patient driver too! Thanks for putting up with me and trusting me with finding locations I'd once visited, but in many cases do not appear on any map!


These are only a few of the many images we created during this trip to Europe. Future plans include a book and a gallery exhibition. Watch this space!...