The day before, I started in a small town on the south coast of Spain. I grabbed my camera, sat down in the
It’s the spontaneity that I love about photography. Of course – photography is my profession, but what I take away from such a road trip means more to me than images. The encounters with people in cities, in the countryside, on the markets inspires me and therefore enriches my life. My camera sharpens my senses and acts as a guide.
It leads me to the market in Malaga, the Mercado Central de Atarazanas. Stepping through the entrance with its gigantic glass window, which depicts various monuments of Malaga, you’re immediately immersed in the hustle and bustle. Between all the stalls and booths with fruits, fish, meat, coffee, cheese, vegetables and spices, the atmosphere is reminiscent of the Arab markets on the other side of the Mediterranean.
After a while, I head off. I want to arrive in Ronda today.
When travelling, I love the rough, the uncomfortable, leaving my comfort zone. Since my childhood holidays which I spent with my parents in a car and in huts in Scandinavia, I have been attracted more to the north than to the south. A night in a simple hut without electricity and flowing water in the snowy mountains of Norway means more to me than the comfort of a hotel. In this moment, anything but luxurious, it is often this simplicity that makes the journey so attractive. To have left the comfort zone for a good picture.
But it's not that my desire for simplicity dictates my destinations; no, the aim of my trips is to catch moments that can only be captured by my head and not my camera.
Ronda has been on my bucket list for a long time: I’m fascinated by the images of the city, the southern tip of which is cut off from the rest of the city by a gigantic gorge – and is connected only by two historic bridges.
So today is the day.
But from Malaga, where I have just left the market hall, I first have to venture through thick fog and up the serpentines to Torcal. I stop off: the dramatic karst landscape provides an exciting environment for photos. It was created by so-called relief inversion: what today rises as rugged cliffs was still the seabed about seven million years ago, and so the rock formations are full of fossilised shells.