The clear light of a Spanish morning began our day with the promise of many wonderful opportunities for photography during our explorations of Andalusia. Because Spain lies at the western edge of its time zone, the sun was still low in the sky when we disembarked, illuminating the centuries-old buildings and low towers of Cadiz with a rich golden light. Backlight, front light, and beautiful defining side light, shadows, reflections and silhouettes—everywhere we looked there were images, bold and delicate, waiting to be captured in our cameras.
Alizé Carrère, our expedition leader, had planned a delightful day with a number of different options—a hallmark of the National Geographic Orion’s journeys through Europe this spring and summer. So some of us were off to Seville for a full day in that beautiful city, others made a short journey out of Cadiz to a sherry bodega (traditional winery) and another group stayed in Cadiz for a more intimate exploration of that ancient city on a walking tour of the old town—and in Cadiz that means really old. The city was founded over three thousand years ago by Phoenician traders and is one of the most ancient urban areas in all of Europe.
A highlight, for many of us, was a visit to the flamenco museum in Seville and a fantastic private performance of that unique form of the dancers’ art. Later in the afternoon our onboard concierge, Todd Copley, encouraged us to delve deeper into the experience of southern Spain with many great suggestions for local food, drinks, museums, historic sites, and a route for exercise and exploration on the ship’s bicycles.
This variety of excursions and activities and the buttery morning light made it a perfect day to explore the many different facets of expedition photography. What is expedition photography? Simply put, it is pretty much everything you can do with a camera outside the studio. Wildlife, landscape, architecture, people, culture, food, abstracts, textures and details, these are all opportunities available to travelers like ourselves who take the time to look beyond the popular icons and truly explore the places we visit. As we shoot, all of these disparate subjects and techniques are united by one clear purpose: storytelling. As expedition photographers we work to create a collection of different images that support each other to tell the story of our travels.
So we strolled through the narrow winding streets of Cadiz keeping our eyes open and our cameras ready while our local guide told us about the history and culture of the city. At our first stop there were fishmongers working in the central market preparing a fantastic variety of fish and other seafood, one of the oldest of all vocations in this Mediterranean port. Nearby we saw children of the 21st century playing in narrow alleys between buildings dating from the 17th century. The buildings themselves gave us strong leading lines, drawing our eyes toward the deep blue sky. We stopped for a wine tasting and there were small glasses filled with subtly different shades of bright amber sherry. Everywhere we looked we could see more images—more pages in our stories.
