This magnificent structure adorning the hillside here in Benalmadena is literally swaying and moving in the breeze as the starless sky gives a perfect backdrop of black contrast. Street lights and houses become twinkling stars.
The stupa’s glowing white form takes on a hint of golden sheen, as the sun sets here in Spain, the sky holding onto its last remnants of sun and color, softly fading into night over the hillside. Having photographed this space more than a few times now I have become more acquainted with its details - its curves and shape, the way the sunlight plays off the edges, and that blue sky that has now become the universal standard for big blue in my book of memories. Changing the venue by just a few simple hours later on, and this environment takes on a whole new vibe.
Lost is the deep blue sky and puffy clouds, but with this comes the night - and the cascading lights of Benalmadena turning on, the warm glow of yellow, gold, orange and red, mixing with the stucco and tile of the Costa Del Sol. Having spent my adolescence in the southern coast of California, this seems altogether familiar to me on more than a few levels, as these instantly recognizable textures and colors, these memories of my past - now mixing with the new and precious moments here in a place I have quickly come to call home. The stupa is dancing in the night, dancing with the lights, the space full of color, as a simple break from work inside the gallery turns into an exploration into long exposure that I lose all track of time. As the city slumbers below, as the coast steeps into dark and the lights of the city come to meet the horizon, the Stupa de Benalmádena stands alone on the hillside, dancing in the night, seemingly illuminated from within.
