Hola! from sunny Fuengirola. I arrived to Malaga on friday evening and went by train to Los Boliches, where my apartment is located. I live on a quiet street, just next to the local church and I´m a short walking distance from Fuengirola center. I will be working at a local Finnish newspaper, Fuengirola.fi. News are published daily on their website and the tabloid version comes out every friday morning and is widely distributed along the Costa Del Sol.
After a good night´s sleep, I was ready for my first photo assignment. Work was supposed to start on monday, but there was an event on saturday in Mijas Pueblo, where my services were needed. A swift and good way to get into the local scene.
On monday I got a desk at the office and after getting to know most of the people in the paper, received more assignments. Tuesday went by pretty fast, with different tasks during the day, but just as the workday was over, we received a call of a big wildfire burning on the outer part of town. We jumped into the car with our editor in chief and rushed to find a spot where to photograph the fire. The motorways were already jammed and we had to speed along the narrow mountain roads to get to a good photo position. After an almost three hour trip we returned to the office with pictures and got them online immediately. There was big interest in the pictures from Finland, as there are thousands of Finns living in the area. Fortunately fire crews were able to extinguish the fire over the night and in the morning life was as usual in Fuengirola.
On wednesday I went for a shoot and interview to Marbella and got to drive a car here for the first time. Spanish traffic is a bit more flexible and dynamic, than in Finland. But as a car aficionado, I was happy to be on the road. Roads are narrow and sometimes addresses are hard to find in a highly populated areas, which I found out later in the day, while spending over an hour trying to figure out how to get to one interviewee. Even though we had a navigation device and a printed map, it seemed impossible to find our destination. Eventually we found our way and got the story.
The working week at the paper consists of a pretty normal monday, a very hectic tuesday and wednesday and a possibly long day on thursday - depending on the status of the stories and pictures. Finally on thursday evening when the paper leaves for the press, the work on that issue is over. Then on friday morning we have a production meeting, where the next week´s paper is planned.
Weekends are off, unless there are some urgent news which need to be published. Tomorrow (friday) evening me and my co-worker planned a trip to a nearby mountain to shoot some scenery photographs and to eat some barbeque food. Early saturday morning I will hop on a bus to Sevilla, and spend the day there trying to capture the sights of that great city. The distance from here is 235 kilometers, so I´ll have a lot of time to see the local nature, at least through the bus window. On sunday I will be joining the Finnish Malaga CF Fan club, and we will be going to the Malaga - Betis football game. Should be an eventful and interested weekend.
Below are some images from this week´s paper and a few extra ones also.
Life in Mijas Pueblo
Local hotel
Local delicacies
Award winning cat and her owner
Street in Mijas Pueblo
Wildfire in Fuengirola
Wildfire part 2
This horse wasn´t happy posing with the Japanese
Interview picture, Jorma Virmavirta
A quick shot on our way to the wildfire
Local vendor and a tourist
