Portugal — Blog — Andy Mumford Photography

CARRASQUEIRA AT LOW TIDE

Carrasqueira is a location I've photographed many times, but not for a couple of years and not since I'd made the switch to Fuji. With the skies looking interesting I made the hour and a half drive down to the estuary of the Sado river hoping that even though the tide was going to be quite low, there would still be enough water to shoot long exposures.

As it turned out I was disappointed, the water had receded revealing the mud that the piers stand in. I'd also hoped to shoot some video, but the wind was so strong that it proved impossible, even with a microphone. The sky, however, was lovely and I passed the time there looking for alternative compositions and attempting to shoot the location in different ways to how I had done previously. It's always great to be out with the camera, particularly in such a peaceful place with a sunset like this, and while the images won't make it into my portfolio it was still a worthwhile trip.

Fujifilm, Landscapes, PortugalAndy MumfordFebruary 7, 2017Portugal, porto da palafita, cais palafitas, landscapes, paisagems, fuji xt2, sunsetComment

AZORES PART 2: FAIAL

On our trip around the Azores we'd planned three nights in Faial, mostly because I was fascinated with the view it had of neighboring Pico and its mountain, but we soon realized that it was a beautiful island in its own right.

On our first day there we drove over to Almoxarife, a small village on the coast on the other side of a headland from the capital Horta. It's a reall pretty little town and we spent a large part of the afternoon diving into the sea from the concrete piers with the the locals. The beaches here are all pretty steep and rocky, and there's something incredibly enjoyable about leaping into the ocean like that. The water in the Azores is much warmer than in mainland Portugal and in such a hot and humid place it was great to jump in.

Fujifilm, Landscapes, Portugal, AzoresAndy MumfordOctober 11, 2016AÇORES, azores, islands, faial, pico, fuji fujifilm, filters, capalinhos, almoxarife, Portugal, sunrise, sunsetComment

AZORES PART 1: PICO

This year Teresa and I decided that we'd like to see more of Portugal so instead of booking an exotic trip to someone far away we've gone on short trips to different parts of Portugal, from Porto in the winter to Alentejo in the spring. For the summer we decided to spend 10 days travelling around some of the islands of the Açores, a place neither of us had ever visited and didn't really know much about. The Açores is an archipelago of nine volcanic islands pretty much in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean midway between Europe and the USA.

The first part was planning which islands to visit. São Miguel is the obvious one, but it's also the most touristed and best known. I spent some time researching the islands and it quickly became apparent that Flores, one of the western most islands, was the one I wanted to photograph most, and next to that is the tiny island of Corvo which also looked stunning. I also wanted to photography Pico, Portugal's highest mountain, which can also be viewed from the neighboring islands of Faial and Sao Jorge. Both of these islands looked lovely, but as there are direct flights to Faial from Lisbon it made sense to spend some time there. So our final plan saw us flying to Faial, picking up a rental car and then catching a ferry for the 30 minute trip to Pico.