Red dot

La Carolina. 1970

My father’s car, La Carolina, was the first mode of transport we used on Sundays to go to the beach and the mountains. The ignition coil was constantly breaking down, and every trip was a likely adventure that could leave us stranded on the road. That’s why we carried a bag with several repaired or new coils that he could swap out in a few minutes.
Unfortunately, there were times when they all failed. The risk of adventure.

Stormy skies. End of summer. Vigo, 26.8.2026

The end of summer, with a sudden autumn. This morning, I drank my coffee while watching the rain fall outside the window. Heavenly music. There was lightning last night, but it seemed far away, not like the lightning in Larnaca, Cyprus.
In the distance, Vigo, the estuary, and the mussel farms under a dark front that passed but didn’t unleash its fury. The temperature is pleasant, 20-22°C, and it’s still bearable in shorts and a t-shirt. I’m getting the car ready for Saturday; 2,000 km lie ahead, the dreaded France, although I’ll try to avoid Paris—that route is unbearable.
Two months that have vanished in the blink of an eye; it seems like we arrived yesterday, and another year added to life. What I try to do is avoid Facebook; it seems like a page of news, illnesses, and deaths. Friends who are leaving us and others who are facing health challenges.
I’ll miss the horizon at sea, the waves, the Nordés wind, and “smart guy,” who’s already cut the bark off over a thousand eucalyptus trees to stop their growth. What a guy, I love him, he’s quite a character.
The ligaments in my left foot are still swollen even though the physiotherapist is working on them well. All because of the sidewalks made with cobblestones, the best place to twist your ankles.

Volcano of La Palma from Todoque spot. November 2021.

These were the first images that would go viral and occupy hours of airtime, without anyone knowing the tragedy that was about to unfold for hundreds of families. Ambulances picked up sick or disabled people, Civil Guard officers with megaphones urged people to evacuate their homes immediately, and they patrolled the streets to evacuate the area, house by house. The afternoon siesta was abruptly shattered. When it was finally possible to enter some places with permits to collect essential items, the scenes inside the homes were of a desperate flight, with no thought given to what was being left behind. The lava flowed down the valley with such speed, due to the steep slope, that it reached the first houses and buried them. The neighbors wept as they watched the images on television.

A image of Berlín east in 1987

1980. Berlin, crossing the wall
Two different worlds divdided by a wall. In 1987 no visas to stay or live in Berli East, only just a day visa and for especial situations it should be arranged in the border or with an travel agency. A good choice to cross the wall for one day walk is get a ticket to visit the Pergamon museum exhibitions.
Still today after so many years, when I remember the times I crossed into the eastern part of Berlin the penetrating smell of coal and the layer of smoke that was created over the streets with the low atmospheric pressure of the freezing winters. It is an indelible image and smell.
Crossing the Berlin Wall was the dream of many people, especially from the eastern part and the press from West Berlin. The political commissars followed our steps: what you bought, what you photographed and, above all, who you talked to or had a coffee with a tasty apple strudel.
The clock of time in East Berlin seemed to have stopped forty or fifty years ago, and the contrast I encountered was brutal. Arriving at the station and passing through the border control transported us back in time to a black and white film: the way people dressed, the Trabant 601s that went from one side to the other, smoking like chimneys, or the Barkas B1000s. Without a doubt, the Trabant in its many versions was my favorite car, just as the trams gave the city, along with that strong smell of coal, a unique setting.
My visits to the Pergamon Museum, each time they brought a new collection, meant arriving early in the morning and spending the whole day there, since overnight and residence permits were almost impossible to obtain. When leaving East Berlin you had to leave all the money you had left; you couldn’t leave with a single cent, or you risked being accused of whatever they could think of.

The last time I saw Honecker was on May 1, 1989. I was covering that event with another French photographer from the Gamma agency, and getting the 300mm Tamron lens across the border was quite an odyssey to tell. On that occasion, the weekly A Nosa Terra gave us an accreditation letter, but several political commissars never left us until we were back across the wall.

Flecha II. 1984

The Flecha II, a speedboat with powerful engines, was seized by customs officials in the winter of 1984 off the coast near Cabo Silleiro, Pontevedra, with a shipment of contraband Winston cigarettes. The smugglers managed to escape by jumping onto the rocks in an area very difficult to navigate. 1984 © Delmi Álvarez. The last lights of the city were disappearing by the stern and also the seagulls that were already in retreat. The captain of the customs boat rested his right hand on the power controls of the engines. Joaquín was drinking Biodramina with coke and I encouraged myself to take several shots without flash of the sunset. On the radars there was hardly any movement except for the boats that were doing the 8 miles looking for sardines above all.

21.02.2026. Leiría, Portugal.- Storm Kristin was a compact, catastrophic and record-breaking extratropical cyclone that severely impacted Portugal, as well as parts of the Mediterranean and Southeastern Europe in late January 2026. Storm Kristin was the twenty-sixth storm of the 2025-26 European windstorm season, and the eleventh to be named by the south-western naming group, which consists of France, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, and Luxembourg. Kristin was named by the IPMA on 27 January, as a significant impact was forecast.[8] The impact of Kristin and her successors was described as a humanitarian crisis by a researcher in extreme weather and climate change.

Kristin achieved record-breaking status by rapidly intensifying just before striking the Leiria district, becoming Portugal’s strongest on record. Kristin made landfall at peak intensity in the Leiria district, which resulted in extremely intense winds in multiple Portuguese districts.

Kristin especially affected the Portuguese districts of Leiria, Coimbra, and Santarém, but also affected other districts in Portugal such as Lisbon. After moving through Portugal, Kristin also affected Spain severely. As a result of Kristin, Portugal experienced its largest blackout in history. Around 1,000,000 customers in Portugal were without power, according to E-Redes.^[13] Approximately 170,000 customers experienced power outages in Andalusia. Over 2,000 injuries were reported in Portugal, most of them got injured indirectly as a result of cleaning and reconstruction operations or misusage of generators. Furthermore, 14 deaths were attributed to Kristin in Portugal, six direct and eight indirect. One death and 5 injuries were reported in Spain. Estimated monetary losses in Portugal are more than €6 billion, which is more than 1.6% of the country’s GDP, making Kristin the most damaging storm on record for Portugal. Initial government estimates indicate losses of €1.2 billion in Spain, bringing the total amount of losses by Kristin to more than €7.2 billion, which makes Kristin the most damaging European windstorm since Lothar of 1999. At least 15 million trees fell in Portugal during Kristin.

Kristin’s successor, storm Leonardo, was responsible for causing major floodings in parts of Portugal, which exacerbated the impact of Kristin. (Source: Wikipedia, author)

Supporting the long term project WATER by colleague and friend Ian Berry published recently as a book. A colossal work that took him years to complete.

Last copies of WATER, the new book of Ian Berry.
Born April 4, 1934 in Lancashire, UK. From 1952 in South Africa, working for the Daily Mail in Johannesburg and later Drum magazine. Invited to join the Magnum Agency by Henri Cartier-Bresson in 1962; full member since 1967. From 1964: first contract photographer for London’s The Observer Magazine. Worldwide assignments, including the coverage of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, conflicts in Israel, Ireland, Vietnam and the Congo, the famine in Ethiopia, and the impact of Apartheid in South Africa. Berry has always worked with Leica cameras – from the M2 to the M9. In 2012, Leica honoured him with a personalised black-lacquer Leica M9-P. The photographer lives in Salisbury, UK.

WEBSITE: HTTPS://WWW.IANBERRYMAGNUM.COM
HTTPS://WWW.INSTAGRAM.COM/IANBERRYMAGNUM

28DEC2007. Namibia. Shipwrecks: Known as a “ship graveyard,” the coast is littered with rusted, skeletal remains of vessels, with roughly 300-500 ships believed to have wrecked there.

Leiría, 21.02.26.. Storm Kristin toppled the sculptures in the Almuinha Grande garden in Leiria, titled “Futuro” (Future). Created by Ricardo Romero, the piece consists of two human figures – a child and a woman – and represents hope, recovery, and “the need to move forward into the future.”
“Storm Kristin caused severe damage to artist Ricardo Romero’s studio in Leiria, along with several public artworks. His practice is now paused as recovery begins. A solidarity GoFundMe appeal, link below, is underway to help rebuild the studio and restore working conditions. Any support or sharing helps.”

#storms#kristin#portugal#leiria

Ferrol. 2007