4 reasons to visit Valencia

Umbracle, València, by Archerphoto

Spain has a lot of interesting cities, but perhaps you haven’t been yet to Valencia, a nice city with lots of interest based in culture, nature and food. With great weather. Take a look to some images. Here you have 4 reasons to visit Valencia.

4 reasons to visit Valencia, Palau de la Generalitat, by Archerphoto, professional photographer.

1. Food: You’ve read about paella. But you haven’t really tasted what it is. Lots of restaurants are claiming they know how to make it. When you arrive here you’ll discover it’s not what you thought, but much, much better. You’ll discover lots of other interesting foods, like horchata, fideuà or all i oli.

4 reasons to visit Valencia, paella de bogavante , by Archerphoto, pro photographer.

2. Architecture and culture. You’ve been watching some of the futuristic architecture of Valencia in some movies and TV, but we’ve got also impressive buildings like the Llotja de la Seda, best example of Gothic civil architecture and lots of Art Noveau, some Baroque, Rationalism, and some of the best gardens in Europe. And great museums.

4 reasons to visit Valencia, Saint Nicholas' Chapel, by Archerphoto, pro photographer.

3. Nightlife. The good weather invites people to go out. And you’re in a city with no slopes. You can take a walk any night, watch some places and have a drink wherever. Cool places and excellent restaurants. And there are also lot of affordable places if you’re not a gourmet.

Nightlife in València

4. People. We are fun, lovely and friendly. People will try to answer you if you speak English, French, Portuguese or Italian. If you speak other languages, well, they may try but, being honest, it’ll be better if you use some translation app in your mobile phone.

I hope you’ve liked this post with 4 reasons to visit Valencia. If you come here and need pics, please contact me. I can show you the place. Mail’s sergi@archerphoto.eu. If you want to follow me in Instagram, @archerphoto.

Of course, València is no paradise. Just a nice place to visit. Perhaps another day I will write a text abouit negative aspects of the city :)

City of Arts and Sciences, Valencia, 4 reasons to visit Valencia

Walks of a photographer in Ruzafa, Valencia

Photographers in Valencia have an interesting city to attack. It’s not Chicago, it’s not Rome, it’s not Berlin, but it has a number of interesting places. Actually, enough. I usually walk very often by Ruzafa (Russafa in Valencian) and around the Ensanche. Although there are many people who do not distinguish them, they are quite different. Ruzafa was a not integrated village in the city until 1877, and that had its own structure of streets of Arab origin. Nowadays it’s adapted to urban planning, but it happened over the years. Its blocks are not regular and it is not conceived, like the Ensanche, as an expansion of the city on previously there were orchards. A photographer in Ruzafa can have a great time.

You can read this article in Spanish.

The expansions, copied from the planning that takes place in Chicago, arrive in Valencia through the Barcelona reference, but on a smaller scale. Goerlich, the municipal architect, will be responsible for the city’s expansion, which, once the walls were demolished, was totally unavoidable.

Walks of a photographer in Ruzafa, Valencia

A part of the Ensanche within Ruzafa

The checkerboard structure of the expansion, which had in the initial plans, with large interior spaces with gardens and a city really conceived to be enjoyed, was divided with a diagonal avenue. The internal spaces to each block are now blocked with the construction of buildings that break the original space and very often the aforementioned interior spaces are  parkings.  Permits were even granted to build more heights than originally thought. All in all, the Ensanche neighborhood (or Eixample) is one of the most interesting in architectural terms.

Ruzafa, on the other hand, is a more charismatic neighborhood and, after a few years in which it was experiencing a certain degradation, it was time for its gentrification. Now it suffers a certain saturation as a leisure area. Its value, which was already on the rise, is propelled because the biggest shortage that it had, which was the total absence of green areas, is compensated nowadays by the commissioning of the Central Park , a project that recovers contaminated lands occupied industrially by RENFE much longer than necessary. Good news, of course, for a photographer for Ruzafa.

Ruzafa lives with a certain schizophrenia its evolution. On the one hand new shops and leisure establishments are installed, while trying to resist some traditional shops. In the middle of everything, some other companies pass. A constant flow.

commercial transition in Ruzafa

 

Leisure areas and Ruzafa

The problem of leisure areas is common in Valencia: the good weather and the habits of the people make them often stay on the street, next to the entertainment venues, during the night, generating a quantity of noise and discomfort that has changed by different areas of the city, which are being classified as Acoustically Saturated Areas.

In any case, the administrative division of the City Council contributes to the confusion between Ruzafa and Ensanche. The district is named Ensanche, but includes Ruzafa, Pla del Remei and Gran Vía. Ruzafa, in turn, includes a part of the Ensanche (of what would be the checkerboard structure) but not the other. The historical reason is that, in 1811, the town of Ruzafa included those territories. When the urbanization operation was carried out, it was more practical to attend to criteria of efficiency than not to think about who each land belonged to.

I’m Sergi Albir, I’m a professional photographer. If you want to contact me for photo sessions you can send me a Whatsapp to +34 644459753 or an email to sergi@archerphoto.eu

Some more images taken by this photographer in Ruzafa.

Sornells Street, by Archerphoto, photographer in Ruzafa, Valencia, Spain

 

Ruzafa Market, by Archerphoto, photographer in Ruzafa, Valencia

 

A bike, by Archerphoto, photographer in Ruzafa

Another post about Valencia.

Studio session with Stephanie

Stephanie is a stunt . She is an actor specialized in action scenes who was about to leave Spain and we were able to take advantage of one of her last days to try a few things. I hope you like this session in study with Stephanie. We tried a few things with flashes and reflectors like I’m doing lately. The work method has been evolving, and this time I decided not to use color to modify them.

Studio session with Stephanie - Photographer in Valencia, SpainAs you can see, Stephanie is not a conventional model. She is, obviously, a very pretty girl, but we wanted to show her closest side to action, so the poses are different from what I usually show on this page. It is what a professional portrait takes. All in all, and despite the fact that the work was in February, it took me a few weeks to teach it for different technical and agenda reasons. Being a professional photographer with photography studio is not exempt from fighting with the specific problems generated by Google with the change of algorithms that I mentioned in another post.

 

A little more about her

However, Stephanie already has some published works, like a movie called Captive State , with John Goodman and here you can see her stunt reel, in case someone decides to sign her up for a production. Due to his capacity for work, attitude and resistance, I can attest that she’i a great contribution to a shoot.

On the other hand, if what you are looking for is a professional photographer in Valencia, Barcelona, ​​Madrid, Leith or Brixton (I think it is clear that I work all over Spain and even further away), you can contact me. My phone, with WhatsApp is +34 644459753 and my email is sergi@archerphoto.eu . Contact me today.

You can read this article about the session studio with Stephanie in Spanish.

Photo session in studio

Determining the type of lighting is always a small dilemma. I tend to be a supporter of working outdoors with natural lighting. I often use a reflector to help me, but while lighting results are lovely, most of the time the reflector must be handled by a person. And for a photo shoot in studio I am in favor of using continuous lighting.

That said, continuous lighting has advantages and disadvantages, and flashes, too. So I have to keep doing tests, as in this session with Mariana Uscanga, from which I show you the results. I used several flashes, filters and reflectors. If there is an amateur photographer who would like to know the setting used, I will have to disappoint him. I took many photos, many experiments, I moved everything and there was not one setting, but a bunch of them. And of course, I did not wrote them up. I do not usually release photography tutorials because there is a lot of competition. Producing them usually has a job much greater than what people imagine. So a hug to the photographers who take that effort and  I send for them my recognition and respect.

 

photo session in studio, photographer, Valencia, Spain

Once the photo session is finished …

After a photo session in studio, one must apply in the editing work. In many of these cases, one of the tasks is in the selection of which are the photos we want, because there are often many similar ones. About the selection it is important to decide, more or less, what we are going to do, so that the work does not become too long. In this case, the idea was to keep the interest in the model totally. Eliminating any detail left over from the background was a priority. Then, the control of the tones is another crucial question. And as some of the photos will end, badly that I regret, on Instagram, it was also appropriate to leave them ready for that application.

photo session in studio, photographer, Valencia, Spain, fitness photographer

Mariana had enough patience not to kill me even though there were many experiments, a few disasters and a significant number of repetitions. But probably you will agree with me that the temper and endurance of this Mexican model had a fair reward.

photo session in studio, photographer, Valencia, Spain, commercial photographer

I’m Sergi Albir, professional photographer. If you want a photo shoot in studio, outdoors, or you have a company, or an event, or you want me to record a video of a turtle submerging, or whatever you can think of, you can contact me at +34 644459753 (better by WhatsApp) or sergi@archerphoto.eu.

photo session in studio, photographer, Valencia, Spain

Dreamhack Spain 2017: results and photos

Dreamhack Spain 2017: results and photos

It’s always worth going through big video games competitions. And more if you have them close to home, as was the case of Dreamhack Spain 2017 (it happened in Valencia again). This time I was not working for the Valencia CF eSports, which had just dissolved its League of Legends team. However the trophy of this competition was for @Elite_Valencia , another local team sponsored by a local specialized in electronic sports that achieved a historical triumph.

However, Evangelion was representing the football club. who had bad luck at the start and after two consecutive defeats, despite a good late streak could not pass the round. If I’m not mistaken, he was the only representative of Valencia CF.  , also a Spaniard, would end up doing the victory against the British  . The joy of this triumph was also contagious amongst fans.

Other competitions and results in Dreamhack

In CSGO NiPGaming won against the also Swedes @RedReserve and in Starcraft2 @ElazerSC2 beat Snute. TRUE and SpeCial were stuck in the semi-finals, which surprised lots of spectators.

In the competition of Smite we saw  winning 3-2 to  in the last match of Summer Finals.

And without more delay, some photos of the competition: there was oriental food, cosplay, contests and a huge LAN area, but it looked much less than the competitions, of course. I may reinforce this post with a video, but I can’t promise.

Dreamhack Valencia 2017: resultados y fotos - Dreamhack Spain 2017: results and photos
Finding the Hearthstone pairings sometimes required additional hardware.

All rights reserved by Sergi Albir. If you want to use any of the photos, contact me at sergi@archerphoto.eu. And if you need photos for your team, your profile or your company, I’d also be happy to talk to you.

This post in Spanish: https://www.archerphoto.eu/dreamhack-valencia-2017/

Dreamhack Spain 2017: results and photos

Landscapes 101

Landscapes by Archerphoto, professional photographer in Spain

Photographers are people who carry a camera way too often. So even when they are doing something else, it’s not strange they stop for a while and capture an image.

Landscapes 101

In my case, some of those landscapes can be stored during years. I classify my pictures and file them in the computer. If I am not in a hurry, they won’t be shown until I need to. The idea is having some material to display when I’m out of juice. It seems the moment: I am a professional photographer in Spain. I live in Valencia and it’s nice to shoot here, but I’ve got some pictures from Germany, Slovakia or United Kingdom in my PC. It’s not my usual business work, but it may be useful for finding some different material.

 

Bratislava

Short term visit, but the Danube was worth a shot. I’d like to come back and see the city with more time to enjoy.

Bratislava, Landscape 1010, by Archerphoto, professional photographer

 

London

For me it’s really captivating. Being there with a camera it’s having a great time. Architecture, people, food… It’s simply great. And you can see I have a thing for the rivers. Thames is also a charm.

London, by Archerphoto, professional photographer

 

Xàtiva (Valencia)

Over a mountain in a summer sunset. It was really hot and I came down on foot. I liked the result.

IMG_3206_small

 

Majorca

Mountains, and sky. I let the sea out of this picture.

Landscapes 101 by Archerphoto, photographer in Spain

 

 

Moraira (Alicante)

My old IXUS 40 was useful that day. Now I would have shot with my cell phone, but then…

Moraira, 2007

 

If you need to hire a photographer, well, you found the right guy. A mail (sergi@archerphoto.eu), Whatsapp, Telegram or phone call to +34 6444 5 9753. If you want to see more pictures, please visit my Flickr: http://flickr.com/photos/archerphoto. Este mismo post en castellano: http://www.archerphoto.eu/paisajes-101

Showreel 2015

Corporate Video in Spain and all Europe

Corporate video in Spain by English speaking professional photographer - Showreel 2015

 

I try to post mostly photography related info, but when I have a video to show, it’s not a bad idea, as long as it is part of the services I offer as a professional photographer. I will have this info in my menu, and I will be offering corporate video -as I have been in previous years- for both national and international clients. If you need a corporate video you may want to contact us. Mostly with a reasonable investment you can achieve optimal results: nowadays it is very simple having video, just need a smartphone, but having  good images and quality content requires working with professionals.

Just a comment about the brands that appear in these videos, Jalalala SL is our company and Archerphoto is the registered brand we use. In 2008 reel we had the collaboration of Guillermo Barreira, who occasionally works with us.

Corporate video

Timelapse, fiction, premises, corporate video and events, we can take charge of your image efficiently. All parts of a production: permits,script, make up, casting or edition. We have also professionals ready to write and record original music, if you need it, or affordable alternatives. Also speakers in Spanish or English, subtitles, etc. Let us help you to produce your video: even when we are a small production company, you can check our results.

Showreel 2015

Please, click here: https://vimeo.com/126159726

I am a professional photographer and video producer. Photography, video and other contents. If you need to contact me, sergi@archerphoto.eu, call or message me to +34 644459753 (Whatsapp amd Telegram available). Si necesitas información en castellano, por favor pasa por http://Archerphoto.eu

Galavant: musical comedy in Valencia

Photography is my profession, but TV series are one of my most notable hobbies. Lately I’ve noticed a new one placed theoretically in Valencia. Name’s Galavant, created by Dan Fogelman (Tangled) and features Joshua Sasse, Timothy Omundson, Mallory Jansen, Karen David and Vinnie Jones (yes, that ex-footballer gotten actor and go, he’s quite fun). It’s a comedy with many musical performances, with scores by the awesome Alan Menken. This gentleman has eight oscars, author of music for films like The Little Mermaid (The Little Mermaid), Aladdin, Pocahontas … Well, the lyrics -courtesy of Fogelman-, even though the music is by Menken,  are more adult focused, with a few touches of black humor, going much further than Tangled lyrics went. Galavant has some great actors and interesting cameos, like Rutger Hauer (yes, the replicant from Blade Runner, remember that “All those moments will be lost like tears in the rain. Time to die” line?), Al Yankovic (maybe you know him by some parodies he has done, give it a try: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEcjgJSqSRU).

I’m telling you all this because the series is interesting but the real relationship with Valencia is nonexistent. So there are some outdoor takes where you’re can see some towers, but they do not coincide with any of the currently existent in Valencia. So I put a couple of photos of the actual Valencia towers and a screenshot of Galavant just in case anyone wants to compare.

I have not found special resemblance between the towers appear and the actual look of Valencia at any time in its history. Valencia is in the mouth of the Turia River, but since the time of the Arab presence in Valencia irrigation ditches dwindled much the volume of river waters. Except in times when overflowed, it has never had the flow that appears in the TV series.

Galavant, Serranos and Quart towers

The appearance of Valencia in 1400 should be around this, according to an engraving of the time. Nothing to do with the way they appear in the series, despite little historical accuracy, is highly recommended.

Galavant, screenshot
Galavant screenshot, ABC Television Network property

The appearance of Valencia in 1400 should be around this, according to an engraving of the time. Nothing to do with the way they appear in the series, despite little historical accuracy, is highly recommended.

Valencia in 1356
Valencia in 1356

 

Torres de Quart, Valencia
Quart Towers, Valencia
Torres de Quart, Valencia
Quart Towers, Valencia
Galavant, torres de Serrans y Quart
Quart Towers, Valencia
Torres de Serrans, Valencia
Serrans Towers, Valencia
Torres de Serrans, Valencia
Serrans Towers, Valencia

Finally, you can take a look at the trailer of the series. See if you like it as much as I do. By the way, it’s been renewed for a second season: http://www.ew.com/article/2015/05/07/galavant-scores-surprising-renewal-abc

I am Sergi Albir, professional photographer in Spain. You can contact me with an e-mail to sergi@archerphoto.eu , phoning me or sending me a message, Whatsapp or Telegram in office hours to +34 6444 5 9753.  More pics in my gallery. Images for businesses, corporate pictures, headshots and all kind of photography you may need.

Valencia Central Market Neighborhood: Barri del Mercat

One of the neighborhoods in central Valencia. The Barri del Mercat, or Market Neighborhood , is the nearest to the Central Market, which itself is a remarkable piece of modernist architecture. The neighborhood is not like that, but are rather humble dwellings mixed with occasional palaces. This space was an extramural suburb in the Arab Valencia, which had its wall in the current Caballeros street, where some parts of the wall remain integrated within existing buildings . Until the fourteenth century the neighborhood remained outside Valencia, but became integrated with the construction of the outer city wall. Next to the current Central there was a mosque, which gave way around 1240 to Santos Juanes church. That same church was rebuilt some centuries after.

Valencia Central Market Neighborhood: Barri del Mercat


Barri del Mercat by Archerphoto, professional photographer in Valencia

Barri del Mercat by Archerphoto, professional photographer Valencia Spain

Barri del Mercat, Iglesia Santos Juanes by Archerphoto, professional photographer Valencia Spain

Barri del Mercat, by Archerphoto, commercial photographer Spain

Barri del Mercat, Mercat Central, by Archerphoto, photographer in Valencia

The neighborhood also houses the Llotja Mercaders or Lonja de la Seda, world’s greatest example of civil Gothic. Declared a World Heritage Site by Unesco, was started to be built by Pere Compte on the very concept of Llotja de Mallorca, and it is an indicative of the commercial revolution during the late Middle Age in the city of Valencia.

Both the Central Mercat as Llotja deserve its own post, but for now, we will release some detail.

Barri del Mercat, Llotja, by Archerphoto, pro photographer in Valencia, Spain

Barri del Mercat, Llotja, by Archerphoto, professional commercial photographer in Valencia, Spain

Barri del Mercat, Llotja, by Archerphoto, commercial photographer in Spain

Barri del Mercat, Llotja, by Archerphoto, professional photographer in Spain

Barri del Mercat, by Archerphoto, professional photographer for business in Valencia

More info about the Llotja: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llotja_de_la_Seda

Sergi Albir.

Copyright Sergi Albir 2014. If you need a professional photographer in Spain, feel free to contact me: sergi@archerphoto.eu

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