THE WHOLE ISLAND IN A DAYFrancesca & Riccardo

Francesca and Riccardo gave me a full day on Lanzarote and very few rules, which on this island is the best way to do it. The day started on the coast in the early light and did not stop until the sun went down in the dunes, and in between the three of us crossed about six landscapes that have no business being on the same island. Black lava one minute, white walls the next, cactus, red rock, cliffs, sand. Lanzarote is small enough to drive across in an afternoon and strange enough to give you all of it.

Here is the honest version of how a day like this goes. You make a plan, then you throw half of it out. I had a spot in mind, a place full of cactus, and when we pulled up it was crawling with tour groups, so the three of us drove on. A minute down the road, behind a petrol station where people were washing their cars and buying slushies, was a cactus garden so good it was hard to believe where it was. That is Lanzarote for you. The best thing that happened all day was the thing we found by accident.

Francesca wore a dress by le mariage. If you are looking for a Lanzarote engagement photographer, and you want to spend a day chasing light across lava and sand with someone who will happily throw the plan out when something better turns up, this is the day I live for. I cannot wait to get back to this island, where I photographed a Lanzarote wedding not long ago and am already looking for the next reason to return. Come and do it with me.

First light on the Lanzarote coast

The coast at the start of the day is all black and red volcanic rock, sea caves and boulders the size of cars, with the water moving through it. Francesca and Riccardo took to it straight away. The first hour, before anyone else is up, is the quiet one, and the two of them took to it without being told.

The cactus garden behind the petrol station

This is the one I told you about. Not the busy spot I had planned, but the accidental one a minute away, tucked behind a petrol station and somehow full of cactus taller than either of them. We had it to ourselves. A day like this rewards couples who are up for a detour, and Francesca and Riccardo were up for anything.

Red rock, arches and caves

From the cactus, into the strange middle of the island. Red terraces cut into the rock, natural arches, a cave or two. The centre of Lanzarote is full of these rooms carved out of lava, one after another, each different from the last. Riccardo and Francesca walked through them like they had all the time in the world.

White walls and hard shadow

Then the other Lanzarote, the white one. Cubes of whitewashed wall against a hard sky, black doorways, shadow you could cut with a knife. It is the island’s other signature, and it could not look less like the lava behind us. Francesca found a doorway with the right light in it and stood there, and that was the frame.

Out to the cliffs

Up to the cliffs for the big view, where the wind takes the dress and the sea runs out to the horizon. Francesca and Riccardo stood at the edge and took it in. Some places you do not need to direct. You make the drive, and you let them be there.

Into the dunes

The last landscape of the day was sand. Dunes running toward the sea, soft and pale, the wind moving the top of them. After a day of hard rock it felt like another planet again. Francesca and Riccardo walked out into it and got small against the ridges, and I let them go.

Sunset

The sun went down behind the dunes and turned everything gold for a few minutes, and then it was just the two of them and the last of the light. A full day on Lanzarote, coast to cactus to cliffs to sand, most of it made up as we went. If that sounds like your kind of engagement day, you know where to find me. I would go back tomorrow.