Lanzarote - The Land Born From The Fire

You land in Lanzarote and you instantly feel like on another planet. Everything slows down. You senses sharpen and start to tune in. You start observing the volcanic mountains, black rocks, dark shiny sand that looks like dust. Moon dust. The soft look invites you to dive right in, endless chocolate mousse of volcanic rock formations, visually fluffy, rich and creamy, but realistically hard as metal and hot as fire, especially roasting in the August sun.

Sensations, feelings, temperature, wind, air, water and fire. All elements come together in the crazy minimal mixture of monochrome colour palettes and rough textures. Black earth, white houses. Minimalism created by nature with clear human efforts to respect that environment.

I fell in love with Lanzarote.

It manifests purity and deep relationship between it's humans and nature. The whole island felt tuned into its powers.

It was so wonderful to see a place on Earth that still tries not to sell out. Not to give into commercialisation, big hotel chains, fast-food joints and shopping malls. And a lot of this beautiful awareness came from one man, Cesar Manrique. His art and his writings sprouted powerful awareness in Lanzarote, and his vision of a sustainable economy and ecological future should be an example for all the islands, and all cities, across the globe.

Imagine an island with no signs, no billboards, no distraction from nature, no noise, no colours, no confusion, no ugliness. Nothing but purity, organic living and synchronisation.

A land of simplicity.

And then in between the dark chocolate volcanic rocks, climbing darkness green vineyards and satin black shimmering sands there was Famara Beach. Majestic bay surrounded by high mountain formations where surfers hanged out. Windy as hell, with sand cutting sharply into your skin, it felt wild and unbridled.

We drove there right after landing in Lanzarote because I wanted to check the light around the sunset hour and it simply blew our mind! The light was perfect. I spotted one person in the water getting ready to come out and I shot my last roll of the day hoping that the photos will be in focus. I must have been shooting as low as 1/30th of a second and, as always, I forgot the lightmeter so I had to rely on my instinct...

I love how the photos turned out.

We kept on coming back to Famara Beach every day to look for more surfers and more waves, which was tricky in the low season. We met some cool people. Tuned in young individuals. I want to thank them all for letting me photograph them. It was so much fun!

My Canary Islands story was commissioned by the Condé Nast Traveller magazine and it got featured in December 2016 - The Island Issue.

Famara Beach shots didn't make the final edit and I so happy to be able to share them here on my blog. Thank you Matt, Karin, Diva and Matias for trusting me and supporting me along the way! It was such an incredible journey!

Hope you love them as much as I do.