Spain So Far: A Film Photo Essay on Slow Travel, Growth, and Lessons from a Year of Change
The Art of Presence
Every Saturday and Sunday, I go for menú del día at my favorite cafés, lingering over three courses and a dog‑eared paperback.
By the canals: learning to move slower
In the first frame, small wooden boats rest against a narrow canal, concrete walls guiding the water while a lone figure walks the path beside the marshes. The scene holds that quiet tension between movement and stillness: cars stacked on a tight village street on one side, open fields swallowing the horizon on the other.
Spain in 2025 taught that productivity is often an illusion; the real progress came on unhurried walks like this, when the phone stayed in the bag and decisions softened into something more intuitive and kind.
Sun flares over the future
Another image catches an ultramodern white building rising from the skyline, wrapped in sunset haze and concentric circles of lens flare, as if the sky itself were double‑exposing the moment.
This is what 2025 felt like: ambitious curves of new plans, half-obscured by glare, yet still pushing up through uncertainty and imperfect focus, proving that not every goal needs sharp edges to be real.
Palm shadows and yellow light: carrying lessons into 2026
The last negatives glow with Mediterranean apartments filtered through palm leaves and trees heavy with bright yellow foliage, shadows cutting geometric shapes across warm stucco and blue sky.
As 2025 fades like the edge of a frame, the lesson is to keep seeking light that is not polished but lived‑in: saying yes to slow travel, to friendships that take time, and to creative projects that grow one imperfect shot at a time.
Autumn Light in the Jardin des Plantes
My trip to Montpellier in November was such a nice, calm moment before a barrage of assignments. I got there by overnight bus, which was already a very unique experience. This southern French town in Fall is a perfect place to go film shooting. In the botanical garden, light paints the foliage in a fantastical way. Spending time with friends and watching the sunset on the beach were some of the various highlights.
