My primary reason for attending Kalamazoo College was its world-renowned study abroad program. Smart move, younger self! During the fall and winter of my junior year, I studied abroad in Cáceres, Spain, and it was, hands down, the time of my life. Every day brought something totally new. I can still remember that feeling of perpetual discovery and wonder, like my brain was on the verge of overflowing all the time. It was an exhausting, but invigorating, experience.

I had been using my Nikon FM10 film camera for several years by the time I moved to Spain, and I was quite loyal to it and the medium. I saw the switch to digital, increasingly common at the time, as an abandonment of principles and artistic integrity. But, as a convenient way of showing friends and family back home what I was up to, I ended up buying a cheap point-and-shoot digital camera — to supplement my other camera, I stressed, not replace it — and posting my photos online. (Mind you, this was before the rise of Facebook. I’m so old, I don’t even remember how people kept in touch back then! Email?!) So, I carried two cameras around at all times, and I inevitably took every picture twice. This arrangement, although inconvenient, worked to my advantage: I played it safe with film and got experimental with digital, and the quality of all my photos improved overall.

I recently trawled through my digital archives and found a treasure trove of old photos, starting with my shots from study abroad. Here are some of my favorites:

Farah was gorgeous, and she knew it. Her personality was loud and fun, and she certainly wasn’t shy around cameras. She was pretty much an ideal model. One day in October we decided to go to a bull fight at the plaza de toros, and Farah brought along one of her madre’s fans. It helped her blend in with all the little old ladies in attendance. At one point I looked over, and she was watching the fight from behind her fan; I knew I had to photograph her like that. At the last second, she looked over at me, and this picture is what came out. None of the pictures of the actual bull fight were memorable, just this single glance stayed with me.

I spent my first holiday season away from home in Cáceres, followed by London and Paris. It wasn’t as hard as I had expected it to be. I went out every evening en paseo, as is the custom, and found myself photographing the Christmas lights in Cáceres two nights in a row. They were surprisingly un-photogenic — maybe it was the lack of snow? My first batch of shots were downright boring, so the next night I resolved to try again. I shot from unusual vantage points at unusual angles, hoping that something might stand out at me, and this was one of the few that came out alright. Persistence pays off!

Damn! It’s getting late, and I’m rambling far too much in a nostalgic daze. Here’s one last shot — I think it speaks for itself — before bedtime.

Buenas noches a todos!