Rota, Spain: Instax SQ20 Edition
Check out some of the photos I took with the Instax SQ20 in Rota, Spain.
So of course I’ve been wanting to take my Instax SQ20 out for a test drive. Today was a perfect morning for that. I thought about going to Seville or Cadiz, but I had some stuff to do for work and I couldn’t afford to be gone all day (with tomorrow being the 4th and pretty much everything being closed). I packed pretty light this morning for this outing. I just took my Instax SQ20, my DJI Pocket 3, and my Insta360 Go 3. I brought the last two so I could record some video from this photo shoot. I’m trying to get back into my YouTube channel so I wanted to have some video footage to be able to create a quick video of the shoot.
I knew exactly what I wanted to take a picture of: the Rota sign. (insert Rota sign photo)
Rota Sign
To get to the sign from where I am, it’s about a 30 minute walk. I turned in my car to ship it back to the states so even if I wanted to drive to it, I wouldn’t be able to. Also, parking in Rota with my American size car can be a pain in the butt. Luckily, it was still cloudy and it wasn’t super hot outside. So about 0730, I put in my ear buds and got to walking. I make it to Rota sign, compose my shot, and take the photo.
Now, this photo is a bit dark and has a blue-ish tint. It’s about 0800 when I get to the sign, but the sun is being blocked by the buildings. Instax film needs a good amount of light in order to capture good details. You can of course still see the sign, but you don’t get to see the color of the different letters or more detail. If I went back around say 1100, when the sun was more overhead, I would be able to capture more of the details and colors of the area.
While not my favorite photo from my photo walk, I don’t have it. I just wish there was more light. I could have used exposure compensation to help with the darkness, but for this photo walk, I was just testing out the straight out of camera look.
Ruta Paseo
After I took a photo of the Rota sign, I was off again. I figured I would head to the Libertad statue. On the way there, I passed this cool tile painting on one of the walls. I was initially just going to walk past it. Much like the issue I had with the Rota sign, this image also came out bluer than I would have liked. Now yes, the painting is blue-tinted, but you can see like the white wall that the painting is on is also tinted blue. With a little more sunshine, I think the blue painting would have stuck out more in the photo.
I went back to heading towards Libertad when I ran across this archway. Now, I’m big on things like patterns, reflections, etc. Basically anything that catches my eye. Enter archway framing steeple in the background. When I stopped to take the photo, I wasn’t sure if the steeple would show up in the background. I was concerned the background (sky/steeple) would be over exposed due to the darker portion of the archway and tunnel.
However, I was pleasantly surprised when I was able to see the steeple in the background. Like the previous photo, the overall image is still a bit blue (it’s still early-ish in the morning), but I’m not upset with this photo. Besides the color temperature of this photo, the only really thing I think I would change about this photo is to better center the steeple in the archway. As you can see in the image, it’s slightly off center of the archway.
Libertad
Archway
The Libertad statue isn’t far from the lighthouse in Rota. It took about five minutes to walk from the painting to the status. I wanted to capture more of the woman’s face, but her face was in the shadow and I knew I wouldn’t get much detail so I opted to shoot the side of the statue in the sun. It’s interesting how much the elements affect this statue. Click on this link to see a look of the statue less than two years ago (photo credit to Bill Bowman). Overall, I’m happy with this photo though. It has some good coloring in both the statue and the sky. I wish there would have been more (or any) clouds in the sky, but I still like this photo.
Pink Flowers
So besides shadows, reflections, etc., I am a big fan of capturing photos of flowers. Now, why? I don’t know. I’m not big on receiving flowers, because they’ll just die and it seems like a waste. But taking a photo of them? Chef’s kiss
I prefer to take macro photos of flowers as I like showcasing the details of the flowers. However, macro photography isn’t necessarily a thing with Instax cameras. (Although, shameless plug, I tried to a type of macro photography with my Instax SQ6. Click the link to check out the YouTube video.)
The biggest thing I would change about this photo is the composition. I would have liked to get a bit closer to the flowers so they filled the entire frame instead of having like that line of green in the top portion of the photo.
Double Exposure
Once I attempted my double exposure, I cut left through a side street and started walking. I started heading towards what looked like some type of castle or fortress. As I walked around the building, I came across this statue of a ship.
I stopped and took this photo for a couple of different reasons. The biggest being that with the location of the sun, there was a nicely defined shadow of the statue. I also like the shadow line of demarcation based on the angle.
When I initially took the photo, it was a bit overexposed. I initially was just going to leave it like it was because I was just going to take one shot of each image. However, the more I thought about it, the more I was like why? The camera I’m using is literally meant to take multiple pictures and I select the image I like best.
Flower Pots
Alright, so I’ve got one photo left and I’m not 100% what I want to take a photo of. I keep just walking around to look and see what I can find. I initially was trying to find this archway that I kept seeing signs for. However, it was getting hot and I was still going to have to walk all the back so at this point, I was just looking for something that looked interesting.
Lo and behold, I came across this tower. This tower is attached to one of the popular markets in the area. What I learned when taking this photo is that I need to leave more space near the place where the photo and frame meets. When I framed this photo and looked through the LCD screen, the skinny pole(?) near the top of the tower was fully in the photo. However, when I printed it, the very top of it was cut off.
Overall, I’m not mad at this photo though. Yes, I would have liked to see more detail in the tower, but I like the fact that the sky isn’t completely blown out.
Next up, I tried my hand at some double exposure. Now I don’t really do much double exposure photography. In fact, this is probably the first time I’ve actually attempted it now that I think about it. As you can tell (or maybe not lol), I need a lot of work on my double exposure work. I think where I messed up here is that my darker subject (first image) wasn’t large enough. I should have chosen a different subject or gotten closer to the subject I chose.
I got the first image by taking a photo of Libertad with the sun behind it (to give me the shadow look) and then I found some flowers and took a picture of those for the second photo. The more I look at the photo, the better I think it looks, but I still need some practice with this technique. I do like that I can see pretty much all of Libertad’s silhouette and the full background of flowers.
Homenaje a los Descubridores de América
My next photo wasn’t too far away from the statue. It was another side street. The reason I had stopped to take this photo is because of the symmetry. You can’t see it in this photo, there were actually another wall with flower pots like in the photo on the other side of the street. However, the reason you are only seeing one wall is because the other wall was missing some flower pots. To me, the image would no longer be symmetrical.
My biggest gripe with this photo is the lack of detail and color. This is mostly due this alleyway being in the shadow. If I had used exposure compensation, I may have been able to capture more of the greens and pinks of the flowers and leaves. I also think the white wall would have been whiter. However, as you can see in the right upper corner, I may have blown out more of that portion of the photo if I used exposure compensation.
Torre del Convento de la Merced
Finally Thoughts
It was so nice to get out and just go shooting. I’m so glad that I was able to get this camera. It was easy to use and has the potential to take some great instant photos. As always, I have to remember that this is an instant camera and it won’t produce images like a mirrorless/DSLR camera. However, I love the ability to physically have photos in my hand. Now, I’ve just gotta figure out how I want to display these photos. Normally, I just put them in a photo album, but I think some of the photos I take should be displayed. Maybe I’ll find some type of hanging frame or go back to scrapbooking. What do you guys think?
Until next time!