Capturing the Magic of Fanal Forest on Our First Day in Madeira

Back in May I needed to go to Portugal for work, and after clearing it with my unimpressed wife, managed to bolt on 3 days afterwards to go to Maderia. I put the feelers out with some photo friends and strongarmed Lee Cooper https://www.instagram.com/leecooperphotography/, Matt Dixon instagram.com/mattdixonphotography/ and Ryan Seymour instagram.com/rj.seymour_photography/ to join me.

I was flying straight from Lisbon and would arrive at our apartment ahead of the others, which afforded me a morning to myself before I needed to collect the guys from the airport.

As we were only there for a very short time our aim was to focus on Fanal Forest, and if we managed to capture anything else, that would be a bonus. I'd chosen accomodation that was close to Fanal to try and improve our chances of success, and as it turned out we could just about make out if there was fog in the area from our balcony,

As the early alarm went off for my solo session I was greeted with a clear drive with not a wisp of mist, but as I approached the car park for Fanal, a beautiful layer of the good stuff was just starting to appear. I had no idea where I should head so I just followed where the sun would rise, and ended up on the right edge of the wood. From here I just randomly walked around until something caught my eye. As it turned out I had the best conditions of the holiday in that first hour and a half, and it really tested my good guy credentials to leave the foggy wood to pick up the fellas.

Here are some images from that pretty awesome first session...

Once the guys were collected we made a quick pit stop at the apartment and then dashed back to Fanal in the hope the thick fog I'd left it in would still be there. If anything it had got thicker, and as I was already pretty happy with what I had from the morning I followed the guys around for the afternoon as they had been to Fanal before. I wasn't quite as pleased with the images from this session, but it was great to be out with my mates in a wood I'd dreamed about for the last few years.

It had been a pretty epic day and we felt chuffed to have got such awesome conditions on our first attempt. We left the wood while it was still foggy but the reward was a beer on our balcony.

As it turns out that was pretty nice too!

For Day 2 we would be joined by woodland legend Neil Burnell instagram.com/neiljburnell/ so there'll be plenty to read about in my next blog...

Adeus!