Author:mena
The Fraile River is one of the most emblematic streams of the Caroig Massif and the best preserved in our geography, almost in the very center of the Valencian Community, considered one of the most beautiful places in the massif, which makes it a unique environment for great landscape and environmental value. It has riverside forests and a leafy forest mass of Rodeno and Aleppo pines, as well as a large number of shrubs such as junipers, palm hearts, Kermes […]
Continuing with the thread of my previous article on developing, and remembering some points in which I told you how a nature photographer should act in the most correct way possible, when teaching their work, such as trying to transmit the most plausible way, the lived reality, without deception and without altering it, this time I bring you as an example, a photograph that I took some years ago, working on a hoopoe nest inside some garroferos. To take the […]
A few weeks ago I went to the region of Los Serranos in the interior of the province of Valencia, through the area of Aras de los Olmos and La Yesa, where we find mountains that exceed 1000 m. altitude and have an immense forest mass of pines and holm oaks that alternate with areas of fields of vines, cereals and almond trees. The Turía river crosses this region from north to south through places of great natural and […]
In this beautiful itinerary we can differentiate two landscapes, on the one hand the spectacular transit through the winding course of the Rio Grande, on the other, the heights over its basin that open the landscape to the vast horizons. Following the spirited and solitary limestone canyon along its course, accompanied by the water and the vegetation sheltered by the humidity and the shade, refuge of the ash tree, we rediscover calm nature. And as the final culmination of this […]
The route through the Barranco Moreno, in the heart of the Macizo del Caroig, has an undoubted landscape value, with a route through the water courses always surrounded by immense closed pine forests. Its eroded bed carved out of limestone forms a unique landscape, to which we have to add some sites with cave paintings and the enormous plant biodiversity of the different floors and microclimates within the same ravine. In autumn, in the shaded areas, the color of the […]
The Gallipato (Pleurodeles waltl) is a species of urodel amphibian of the Salamandridae family, like most European urodeles. It is endemic to the Iberian Peninsula and northern Morocco. In the Valencian Community, the name of this newt comes from the fact that it can be found in cattle troughs and ranchers thought that if an animal swallowed one of these newts, it could drown. It must be said that in folklore it is very common to attribute negative qualities […]
In another photographic discipline I do not know, but in nature photography, I am clear that we have the duty and obligation to capture reality as it is, trying to alter it as little as possible so that it reaches the eyes of the viewer as pure as possible. Light is the main basis of photography, and we must know how to channel it as well as possible before it reaches our camera sensor, because everything that we do not […]
In many of the European cathedrals, some castles and numerous civil buildings, fantastic and terrifying beings observe us and watch over us in silence from above. They are the gargoyles, terrifying stone creatures, with sinister, Dantesque expressions, which represent anthropomorphic figures of tormented souls, grotesque animals, demons, witches, harpies, dragons, unicorns, basilisks, griffins, lions… monstrous beings, infernal and with a very defined functionality, and that reached the churches during the twelfth century. They were consolidated in the Gothic and then […]
The conical shape of the hoods of the Nazarenes evokes an approach of the penitent to heaven, interpreted by many Christians as a place of salvation. This symbolic value is analogous to the one that the cypresses have, trees with a pointed crown, in Christian cemeteries, which bring the deceased closer to heaven, a place where, according to some beliefs, life after death takes place. For American culture, the most representative thing of the Nazarenes is their hood, a kind […]
Is it true that there is a carnivorous plant in the Valencian mountains? Well yes, as it is also true that today I went to photograph it, on a day when it really did not meet the conditions to travel to the abrupt place where it lives, since in recent weeks we have endured an intense storm of heavy rains, leaving the mountains with the flooded ravines. It has been a very difficult route, avoiding innumerable ravines with water up […]
