Outstanding Desert Photography in Gorafe

This week we made a trip to the desert in Gorafe to take photographs and scout locations for an upcoming Desert Photography workshop we’re running in late September. More about that presently, but look out for the Eight Peaks Photography website, launching in May 2025. This is where we will be running our workshops and tours starting in September 2025.

The history of Gorafe is interesting, originally an inland sea, it was inhabited by primitive tribes very early on, it features one of the largest megalithic complexes in Europe. Mountains, ravines, gullies, deep valleys, cave dwellings, dolmens (ancient burial grounds) abound. It’s a two day trip minimally. I have to say, photographically speaking I’m not particularly enthusiastic about the dolmens and cave dwellings. Photogenic they are not, but there is plenty of outstanding picture opportunities in this area.

We rashly decided to take the Jeep down into the gorge and follow Route 426, a circular hiking trail around 30km long. The recent rains in Spain have created deep gullies in the trail and I found myself thankful for having been raised on a muddy farm in North Yorkshire, the years of driving tractors through boggy fields turned out to be essential training for this challenging route. It took us around four hours to complete.

In daytime, the colours are a. little muted, but at dawn and in the evening the place comes alive. Light picking out the contouers of the countless ravines and gullies as well as bringing a richness to the colours of the rock formations.

The best photo of the trip, was the Glass House, this unique building is perched on the very edge of the abyss. I photographed it from about half a mile away, using a 70-200mm lens with a 2x extender, just as the sun broke cover over the hills behind.

Another site of interest is the observatory at Los Coloraos. I’m not sure when this place is open to the public, it is surrounded by a wire fence and I was told off by a security guard for walking through an open gate onto the site. I did get this picture before he intervened!

I also shot some panoramas for a video, I’ve written extensively about shooting panoramas, so I won’t dwell on the subject but this one was made from two rows of 13 frames each, overlapping approximately 30%. I cropped the finished article to 3:1 which is more web site friendly. If you are interested, there is a. video I made on my YouTube channel about the shooting and processing of this panorama.

This is a location that continues to amaze, taking a slightly wider look, there are hot springs, waterfalls and near Guadix, cave houses and cave villages that are still lived in. It’s a fascinating. part of Spain and not all that well known. I first visited it about ten years ago and have been several times in the last couple of years. There are surprises around every corner, but a word to the unwise – don’t even think about doing the 4×4 Route 426 trek on your own, in anything other than a short wheel base Jeep or Landrover. It is way more demanding than the routes Jeep use to test for the Trailhawk designated vehicles.

The photographs on this page were taken with a Canon 5Ds equipped with a Canon 70-200mm lens, occasionally extended with a Canon EF 2x Extender. This combination requires a steady tripod!