First of all, I would like to wish you –a bit late- a Happy New Year!
This first blog article took some time to write, as I've been travelling a lot since December and had a lot to select & dit. January was so productive that the first five (!) blog posts and photo series are already finished.
The highlight was certainly one of the whitest snowy landscapes I've ever seen in the „Rothaargebirge“ mountains, with very photogenic conditions. But before I show these pictures (not until February), I'll be travelling to the warmth of the Algarve.
I would like to start today with the first of three series of pictures from Portugal, each with 23-25 images. Somehow we have fallen in love with this country, especially in winter. In recent years, I have enjoyed travelling with Christina on New Year's Eve, even within Germany. Unfortunately, snow is no longer really reliable at this time of year in our latitudes and if you catch a rainy spell, there's hardly any light and it's pretty gloomy outside. And in Scandinavia, for example, the days at the beginning of January are still a bit too short for me.
So last year, we ran a workshop in Portugal for the first time in winter and were so impressed that we decided we'd love to do it again! And so we were back at the airport a year later 😀
Firstly, we spent just under a week privately just above the Algarve, in Alentejo. During this time we explored many new spots, more about this in the third series. At the beginning of January, we finally picked up the participants of our 8-day photo trip and had a really great week, to say the least. Afterwards we spent another 3 and a half days near Faro and discovered two real gems in this area, more on this in part three.
Pictures from our photo workshop trip can be found in the first two parts. Today I start with some landscape shots and next week I will show you details, colours and shapes of Portugal.
When we picked up the group at the airport, everyone was happy to see the sun again. Between October and December, the weather in German-speaking countries was really bad and everyone was happy about the good weather and mild temperatures. The weather in the Algarve is comparable to a very nice day at the end of April/beginning of May in Germany. So, lots of sunshine, you still need a thin jacket in the morning and late in the evening, and almost T-shirt temperatures are reached during the course of the day, between 14 and 18 degrees. Just ideal for me personally.
The light conditions are just as ideal in winter: on many beaches, the angle to the sun is not right in the other seasons, which is great in winter. The beaches are also much emptier and the sunrise and sunset times are very pleasant. In the Algarve, you also have the advantage of having south-east facing beaches in the morning and south-west facing beaches in the evening.
Christina and I really enjoyed the time; we had great photo conditions, great food and lots of fun in the group - many thanks at this point to Petra, Natalie, Eric, Ulrich and Holger 👋
And of course an equally big thank you to Kathrin Brockmann from Brockmann Travel, who made our fantastic photo trips possible in the first place and did a great job organising them 👌
I hope you enjoy this little series of pictures:
I hope you enjoyed the series 🖐