Journey 03 · Spain
Oranges Underfoot
Andalusia in slow light
Published 27 Mar 2026 · Travelled 20 Feb – 3 Mar 2026
- 8 moments
- 12 days
- 412 km
- Winter
- Spain
- 18.3mm · f/4 · 1/320
- 37.3846° N, 5.9900° W
- Barrio de Santa Cruz
- 09:15
- 13°C, cool sun
February in Seville and the whole city smells faintly of marmalade going to waste. The oranges drop, roll into gutters, and get kicked politely along by everyone. A council van follows the smell around town collecting them; nobody could tell me where they go, and I now prefer not knowing.
- 18.3mm · f/5.6 · 1/500
- 37.3772° N, 5.9869° W
- Plaza de España, Seville
- 17:40
- 16°C, golden
The plaza is a half-moon of ceramic and ambition, built for an exhibition and kept for the pigeons. A carriage came through at a trot and every phone rose in unison like a flock startled off a wire. I waited for it to pass the tower and took one frame. The GR is quiet; the horse never knew.
- 18.3mm · f/2.8 · 1/60
- 37.3907° N, 5.9944° W
- Calle Sierpes
- 12:20
- 15°C
A shop where the ceiling is entirely legs of jamón, each one tagged and dated like a wine cellar that learned to walk. The man behind the counter carved a slice so thin you could read through it and handed it over on a scrap of paper, watching my face for the verdict. There is a correct verdict.
04 · Rules of the trip, written on the train to Córdoba
- 18.3mm · f/2.8 · 1/25, held on a breath
- 37.8789° N, 4.7794° W
- 18.3mm · f/2.8 · 1/25, held on a breath
- 37.8789° N, 4.7794° W
- Mezquita-Catedral de Córdoba
- 10:10
- 12°C, dim, cool
Eight hundred and fifty columns and the light does something different between every pair. It was a mosque, then a cathedral was lowered into the middle of it like a ship in a bottle, and the arches just keep going around the interruption. I shot until a guard pointed at the no-tripod sign, examined my tiny camera, and waved me on with something like pity.
- 18.3mm · f/5.6 · 1/250
- 37.1810° N, 3.5926° W
- Albaicín, Granada
- 18:05
- 10°C, clear, cold coming
In Granada every lane in the Albaicín eventually points the same way, like iron filings. You turn a corner arguing with your map and there it is across the valley — the Alhambra, gold at the end of a white street, with the Sierra Nevada holding snow behind it. The whole neighbourhood is an accidental viewfinder.
shot standing in a doorway to keep the walls parallel. the owner came out. we discussed it. she approved.
- 18.3mm · f/5.6 · 1/200
- 36.8640° N, 5.1817° W
- Setenil de las Bodegas
- 13:30
- 15°C, mild
Setenil de las Bodegas didn't build around the rock, it moved in underneath it — whole streets roofed by a cliff that hasn't fallen yet. People drink coffee under several thousand tonnes of geology with total calm. I kept photographing the underside of the boulder; the locals kept photographing nothing, because it's Tuesday.
- Puente Nuevo, Ronda
- 19:25
- 7°C, clear, cold
- Last frame
The bridge at Ronda stitches a town across a gorge that would rather it didn't. At dusk they light it from underneath and the whole improbable thing glows like it's proud of itself, which it has every right to be. Last frame of the trip, camera on a wall, self-timer, hands in pockets against the cold.
- 18.3mm · f/2.8 · 1/8, camera on the parapet
- 36.7405° N, 5.1658° W
The route
8 stops
Journey completed
Twelve days, eight stories
- Distance walked
- 131 km
- Frames exposed
- 1580
- Cities
- 3
- Towns built somewhere unreasonable
- 2
- Churros, plates of, solo
- 5
- Favourite moment
- The Mezquita ten minutes after opening, arches repeating into the dark like an echo you can walk into
- Best food
- Salmorejo in Córdoba, thick enough to stand a breadstick in
