Mountain Photography in Spain

Is Mountain Photography a thing, a genre of its own or simply a subset of landscape photography? I’ve done plenty of mountain photography in Spain this year and I’m leaning towards the “genre of its own” classification.

Mountain Photography in Spain

I have spent a lot of time this year in the mountains, Sierra Nevada and Picos de Europa mainly but also hiking lesser peaks in Cabo de Gata and Lentigi. I never gave the genre question much thought until I was asked to curate a storyboard for the Flipboard newsletter last month. I looked at the storyboards that other people had put together and decided that if I wanted to do this well, I needed to focus on something I was passionate about.

Taking an unfeasibly large backpack full of camera equipment and overnight camping gear up Mulhacen, the highest mountain in Spain, in August was the highpoint of the year for me, and so I decided to curate some articles from my own website and others into a storyboard called Exploring Mountain Photography. The storyboard was wildly successful, driving traffic to this website into the high thousands in October. I guess that means it’s a thing!

Locations

I’ve been lucky enough to link up with Richard Hartley and Kiersten Hartley Rowland from Spanish Highs, the principal company offering mountain hiking holidays in Spain. They have enabled me to reach mountain locations I wouldn’t have otherwise known existed.

It’s been a life affirming experience, though anyone seeing me in the immediate aftermath of the four hour, 1500m descent from Mulhacen wouldn’t have necessarily thought so. Legs like warm spaghetti.

We’ve walked in the Alpujarras, Sierra Nevada, Picos de Europa and several locations around Granada. Some of the hiking has been tough, especially with the camera equipment but I think it’s been worthwhile.

These are my top ten locations I’ve shot this year.

1. Sierra Nevada – Mulhacen
2. Cantabria – Picos de Europa
3. Sierra Nevada – Sierra de Huetor
4. Alpujarras – Taha Valley
5. Lecrin Valley – Ruta Camino de Los Pinos
6. Lecrin Valley – Ruta de las Fuentes y Atalaya de Conchar
7. Sierra Nevada – Los Cahorros de Monachil
8. Cabo de Gata – Cabo de Gata Nijar Natural Park
9. Sierra Nevada – Loma Pua, Pico Sabinar & Rio Veleta
10. Lecrin Valley – Barranco de la Luna

Gear

This is the area that, for me, separates Mountain Photography from Landscape Photography. Until you find yourself five miles from the nearest civilisation, two hours from sundown, choosing between the prospect of photographing a wonderful sunset and spending the night on the mountain or missing the photograph and returning to a warm car, you don’t really appreciate that the mountains can be tough on the unprepared. In winter they can kill.

Even in July, the temperature at the top of Mulhacen sank to near zero. In winter it will drop well below zero, so unless hypothermia is attractive, you’ll need to think about clothes, food and shelter.

If you thought gear acquisition was bad in photography, welcome to a whole new level of pain! This year I’ve acquired a tent built for mountain adventures to replace a plainly inadequate purchase made in the UK for campsite use, a sleeping bag designed for sub zero temperatures, an inflatable sleeping mat to reduce the impact of rocks on the quality of my sleep, a portable stove to cook on and layer upon layer of clothing designed to wick sweat away from my skin and keep me warm when the temperatures plummet and the strenuous walking is suspended for the night. The combination of sweaty clothes in freezing temperatures can quite literally kill.

You’ll need enough water to prevent dehydration and electrolyte drinks to add key minerals and help your body to rapidly absorb them. These are not faddish accessories, they work.

And of course all of this kit needs to be carried, so I evaluate every gram when I’m buying clothes and kit. With the camera equipment, clothes, kit and tent I’m probably looking at 15kg extra weight to haul up the hills.

Safety

One thing I very quickly realised is just how easy it is to get lost in the mountains. Many years ago when I was in Quebec, I lived in a small town called St Agathe about forty miles north of Montreal. One sunny winter day, a friend and I decided to take cross country skis and circumnavigate the town and neighbouring lake.

The lake was lined with pine covered hills and the trip would necessitate going behind the first layer of hills. Sounds easy. But finding no trails other than those made by bears and wolves, off we set, using the sun to navigate. We got behind the first hill only to find our route blocked by another larger hill. To cut a long story short we became hopelessly lost, the sunshine gave way to dusk and the temperature dropped like a stone. In that part of Canada it can reach -20° in the winter,

Fortunately for us, before it got too dark to travel we came across a road maintenance crew building a road north towards the Hudson Bay. They were somewhat startled by two teenagers emerging from the woods on skis – turns out we were twenty miles north of our starting position.

So I added a compass, GPS device and several apps to my iPhone. Based on the St Agathe experience it would be all too easy to get lost in the Sierra Nevada and I don’t want to be the one to prove that safety is absolutely a priority in the mountains.

Second to the equipment, every expedition into the wilderness needs to be planned to the extent that once you are out there, all you need to do is take one step after another and look out for good compositions. The plan takes care of the rest. This process should include maps, a route that can be loaded into an app like AllTrails and food and sleeping arrangements if it’s going to be a longer trip than a day.

Join me in Spain in 2024

Spain offers some breathtaking scenery that is mostly off the photography map. We’ve all seen wonderful photographs from Iceland, the Dolomites, Yosemite and so on, but these destinations, as remarkable as they are, are often chock full of photographers literally queueing to take the same photograph.

I’m working towards something different, an opportunity for photographers to get to shoot some of the wonderful yet untried and untested locations in Spain. Next year I’m offering reasonably priced one day trips in Andalucia and one week long trip in the Autumn (no camping), including landscape photography workshops, and including mountain and desert shoots.

If you’re interested in joining us, sign up to the mailing list below and not only will you get to be the first to know, but you’ll get reduced prices as well.