Over the last few years I have not been updating this blog as frequently anymore as I used to in the past. I used to make daily blog posts on here when I was still shooting digital and then finally switched the format to one long post every now and then, collecting all the rolls I had accumulated in the meantime. Lately I haven’t really done that and one of the reasons for this is my YouTube channel. I can go into a lot more detail about my process there and at most these blog posts now serve as accompanyment to the videos, so that you can look at the pictures with a bit more time if you want.

The other reason why I’ve neglected this blog over the last couple of years is that I simply didn’t take as many pictures anymore as before. There are many reasons for this and it’s safe to say that pandemic depression had some part in it. After all, I’m risk group and that’s not really changing. People might not talk about it anymore and cases don’t get reported either, but I still have to be careful because my situation hasn’t really changed all that much. And then there was of course all the nightmarish stress we had with buying a house, moving there, renovating it etc. My darkroom wasn’t really set up for a while and I didn’t want to accumulate a huge backlog. Well, I’m now starting to get back into the swing of things and I’m on my way to exploring our new town photographically.

It took a good long while until I finally felt like I even had the mind space to work on new photography projects, but I think I’m on my way now. The first step is always to get my bearings in a new place and see what I have to work with in the immediate surroundings. I’m not really all that familiar with the town where we moved. I sometimes came here to shoot events while we still lived in San Sebastián, but I didn’t really know more than the high street area. There is much more to it than that though and I still have much to explore.

The way I usually go about exploring a new place is to have a look at a map and then take my Leica to places that seem interesting. And then, if I find something interesting I might go back with another camera and explore the place from a different perspective, like for example with a camera that can make closeups too like my Mamiya C220. In this case I realised that there is a nature preserve a few kilometres from here, so I went for a first exploration there and tried to find an efficient way to get there. At first I had to walk along a motorway for a little bit, but then I quickly found a path leading down into the bird preserve. Beautiful place, no doubt about it. You can watch the whole video here or scroll down to see just the pictures.

All pictures taken with: Leica M6, Voigtländer Nokton 50mm f/1.1. Shot on Delta 100 and developed in HC-110.

Here a bonus picture that I didn’t show in the video because it just wouldn’t fit into the flow of the edit.

There are hairdressers on practically every corner around here. I haven’t been to a hairdresser in literally more than a decade.

Obligatory mirror self-portrait, with the GoPro visible.

The footbridge across the motorway is quite photogenic. One day I will have to go back at night and photograph the wild LED setup they have there.

Unlike in San Sebastián you see quite a bit more graffiti in this place.

A pumping station for the fire fighters apparently. I like that there are now solar panels around these sorts of places.

My first attempt to get closer to the nature preserve was a dead end, but I got a couple of interesting photos at least. The dynamic range of Delta 100 is quite lovely.

All of this is swamp land, so veering off path is not a good idea.

I photographed this from across the motorway. One day I have to try whether there is a way to get closer to this, it looks quite cool and ominous.

No idea what these plants are, they looked quite alien.

Ah, finally some nature. And the Nokton definitely rendered this one in a lovely way.

Random hideout. I didn’t investigate further because someone seemed to live there and I had no interest in meeting them.

The fencing was covered with fake greenery, so I was quite surprised how dark it turned out at the angle in which I shot it. This made my black and white spidey senses tingle though, so I knew the curved lines would turn into something interesting.

It was high tide. The bird preserve lies along the river delta of the Bidasoa and it goes right into the sea, so along the canals it might get flooded if there is an especially high tide and during low tide it looks entirely different.

The Nokton is really lovely for this kind of nature imagery. Swirls and nature always go well together.

I couldn’t resist this one.

My husband asked me why I took a picture of this while we were watching my video together. Well, here is the reason: The sticker that says ghost on it. The Nokton rendered this in a lovely way too.

I was drawn to this by the geometry.

Very odd little hole. Someone made this for a reason, but it’s rather unclear why. This is within a bird preserve and most of the critters running around there can fly. It made me wonder whether there are other small animals in the area that weren’t shown on the signs they had put up to inform the public of their preservation efforts. And the picture itself turned out quite lovely too. I like how the rendering of the Nokton swirl draws you into the dark in the middle even further.

This place was my destination, I had seen pictures of it on Google maps so I wanted to see it for myself.

There are farms and vineyards all around the area.

I was kicking myself for not taking a red filter because the clouds were quite a bit more impressive than this in person. But well, this is nearby, I’m sure I’ll rectify that mistake sooner or later.

Two swans were hovering just out of frame forever. I wanted them to swim into the frame, but they were way too lazy to swim upstream. In the end some smaller birds made some lines in the water I liked, so this turned into my last picture of the roll.