Notes from the Lab is a newsletter that delves deep into the creative process, rituals, and thought process behind being a photographer and filmmaker.
This project is a journal of my projects and experiments. A logbook of everything I learn, a record of inspirations and takeaways from my journey as a parent and artist. I want to share my creative and technical progress as relentlessly as possible because gatekeeping sucks. It’s published (almost-) weekly.
Occasionally, it’s also a good old photo blog.
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Hi again!
Designing and filling the archive of a new website is always an excellent reason to look back and re-edit past projects and assignments.
Recently, I went into a full-blown, late-night rabbit hole of digging through my collected travel photos from the past couple of years.
Splitting into two parts, today and next week, I will take you on the journey back to these last years of travel assignments, accompanied by a few anecdotes here and there and a good load of sunny nostalgia as the days are slowly getting shorter.
If you can’t wait and want to have a look first, here’s the full portfolio of 40 images on my website:
https://ramonhaindl.com/work/travel
Instead of sorting the pictures chronologically, I’ve decided to do a rather eclectic narrative for the mixed travel work, evoking a more emotional narrative rather than documenting a coherent series of images of one place/assignment. These are reserved for individual projects on my website.
It’s always a noteworthy moment when the occasional “Hey, can you get to (country XYZ) for us to shoot a story on (XYZ)…” text hits your inbox, usually followed by a feeling of anticipation and excitement and a tiny grain of anxiety as I typically don’t enjoy flying that much, but I’m coping and adapting.
These more extensive travel assignments usually came 2-3 times a year before the big COVID blow, and unfortunately, a few magazines and inflight publications got canceled after the pandemic. However, there is still an opportunity for an assignment that involves extensive traveling here and there.
Depending on the client, these assignments usually weren’t as well paid as commercial assignments, but accessing all possible memories and photo opportunities was well worth it as compensation.
Let’s delve into the first part, shall we?
TAMPA, FLORIDA 2015
In 2015, I was invited to join a group of photo influencers by a German airline to celebrate the introduction of Tampa, Florida, as their next destination on the list. Sporting a measly following count back in the day, I was the only photographer on this trip without a huge audience, but actually the only one who was paid. Well…
We were out in the streets and on different field trips throughout the city and pretty much free to record whatever we saw, quite a dream assignment. I ran into this girl in an old sedan on the streets and was intrigued by the composition and hues of brown and orange. This picture never made it into the edit, but I still like it.
On the third day, I decided to enter one of the many cigar workshops scattered around town and met this lovely lady:
And it was raining, and the humidity was something else, but all the cloud formations made up for it big time.
LANZAROTE, CANARY ISLANDS 2015
2015 again. My good friend Jacob invited me on a trip to Lanzarote to shoot the cover and artwork for his new album. We’ve spent a few days in a landscape that felt like Mars and had a few cervezas. We made the artwork and teaser after a couple of highly enjoyable drone flights in high winds. What a blast from the past.
And on the day of departure, I found this dog, perfectly composed in the setting sun, guarding a roof. I didn’t include this image in the edit for some reason, but I might soon.
He's a good dog, too proud to bark once.
ANDALUSIA, SPAIN 2015
2015 was a good year for travel assignments. This time, it was pretty convenient, as for some reason, there happened to be two different stories in the south of Spain for the same German magazine at around the same time, so I headed into the blazing August heat of Andalusia to shoot a reportage on the mining region of Rio Tinto and all the environmental repercussions that the exploitation of natural resources entails.
Here is one of my favorite images of all time: a controlled explosion in the mines of Rio Tinto. Seconds after this image, vast chunks of rocks rained down on our car, and we had to hide behind. Parts of my lens were shattered, and our fixer half-heartedly excused himself for standing too close to the explosion. Well worth it, though…
A couple of days later, I said goodbye to the journalist for the first part of the trip and headed off from Sevilla to the sweet coast town of Cádiz. There, I was assigned to shoot a portrait of the local producer of Game of Thrones, which was partially shot in Andalusia.
I found this very picturesque scene at the beach of Cádiz on the first day, around sunset:
I will continue next week with Part II of my travel collection,
and I plan to do more archive posts like these in the future.
Let me know your thoughts, and subscribe and share if you haven’t already.
Thank you for reading!
xoxo — Ramon
Wow! This was a rad, beautiful journey to read through. That first photo is a new favorite of mine. Thank you for sharing!! Can't wait for Part II
Wonderful! The photograph with the dog is my favourite!