FANAL FOREST - FIRST REAL EFFORTS
We hate to say it, as interesting as many of the sites we have visited have been, they were not conducive to the type of photography we like to do, which is to wander in an area and discover new photographic opportunities. As beautiful as the sights from a viewpoint (miradouro) may be, you’re really offered only one view, or segments of that view you can extract. They may make for great pictures (and experiences), but they don’t offer much in terms of the process of photography.
The one place where we haven’t found that to be the case, perhaps because it’s the only fairly large, generally level area on Madeira that we’ve found, is the Fanal Forest. So our second-week days have often involved making a trip there to photograph at some point, with the remainder of the day exploring other areas, hoping to find places where we can wander around to discover photographs. Even the levada hike efforts have fallen short in that respect. Still, the time spent at the Fanal Forest (or elsewhere in Madeira) has not been a waste (and hopefully the times to come won’t either).
These first two images come from our second scouting trip there, where we explored the eastern part of the forest we didn’t get to on our first trip. This time, we only brought our point-and-shoot cameras and then were surprised when the fog started rolling in.
You’ve heard me talk about this recently on the blog, but I’m stunned at the quality the Lumix (with its Leica lens) will deliver. I honestly have to say that I think many of my best photographs from the trip have been taken with the Lumix. In fact, these first two images were made as “scouting” images, and were the reason why I returned the next day. Of course there were slightly different conditions, and provided reasons to frame the subject differently. But I can’t really say that the image below, of the same tree, is better than the one above. It’s just different. Both have their merits. I can say I immediately returned to the location below because of the image above (and will likely return there again under different conditions).
And this is yet another image that had been scouted the day before. When we were at this location the first time, it was sunny and had a very different feel. This morning the fog rolled in very heavily and I made one photograph, only to leave, stop in my tracks and set up again as the fog started thinning to allow the distant hillside and trees to appear.
So that’s it. A few of the early efforts at the Fanal Forest. I’m sure I’ll return to these once I’m home and have a better monitor to evaluate them with, but they are a good start about the possibilities available there.
I’m already wondering how some of these will print!