First race of the season working for Salomon Running! As always, a pleasure to be sharing the experience with athletes like Max King, Megan Kimmel, Aritz Egea or Petter Engdahl among others!

We spent the morning before Transvulcania, discovering the firsts kilometers of the race… it doesn’t seems our planet! When you’re there, you can easily imagine yourself on the moon, even on mars…

To run a race, you must train… but also it’s important to prepare every little detail. During the internal briefing we decided in which aid stations the team was going to be during the race to help the athletes and give them everything needed!

The internal briefing is normally done anywhere, it doesn’t matter if it’s big, small, beautiful or not… but in this case, I suggested them a part of the hotel that was perfect. Ok, it was f***ing warm… but the light, the space and the scenery were so nice!

After that, rest and get your mind ready.

This one was my 6th Transvulcania edition. I was there in 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 and again this year. I already shot the startline, the sunrise close to Las Deseadas, the forest in El Pilar, the uphill to El Roque de los Muchachos and the summit too, the downhill to Tazacorte and the following canyon…

The afternoon before the race everyone was asking me where I was going to be… and everyone was telling me “I will go to shoot the sunrise…”. My reply was clear, “I don’t know yet… but for sure not the sunrise, because everyone if going there!”.

When I travel to a race, I try to take different pictures every year (OK, not in Zegama but because Zegama it’s not about the race, it’s about the people!). In Transvulcania starts to be difficult to shoot in a new place, but after some hours thinking where to go, my mind said: “I’m in La Palma and it’s well known to be one of the clearest sky in the world and one of the most privileged spots on the planet for astronomical observation. And I’ve never seen a picture of a runner with the Milkyway behind?… WTF? Go for it!”

“Done!”

This one is, in my opinion, ‘my best picture’ of my 6th Transvulcania edition. I have some other pics that I love from this edition… but this one was the one that I created the day before on my mind.

How I did this picture? Let’s explain it!

Of course, there are two pictures… one of the sky and one of Petter running!

At first I set my spot with two flashes (one for the runner and one to illuminate the tree behind) and test the lights to be sure that I was going to be ready when the first runner was coming… I did this shot to the stars.

Then I shot Petter (1st runner there) without taking care of the stars, just being focus to have him perfectly exposed.

And finally I did the composition of both images in one with Photoshop.

To finish this new entry on my blog, I would like to share some other pictures from this Transvulcania 2019. Thanks again to Salomon to bring me there and to all the people who shared a minute with me, talking, laughing, working… enjoying trail running.