I’ve been to Spain four times now, and every time we visited, we spent most of the time with family albeit a few day trips here and there. I really haven’t travelled around Europe very much, and Spain is my real foray into the region. I love it that this region has so much variety in cultures all packed into one of the smaller continents. I’ve seen enough road trip movies as a kid to have that idealic impression of a road trip, made famous by the likes of Easy Rider, Smokey and the Bandit, and The Motorcycle Diaries. Even though I have been on many mini road trips around the US, I’ve never been on a planned one. It was about time I experienced one. So the summer of 2011 we decided to start with Spain – a road trip from the northern tip of Spain in Santander, all the way to the southern coast, to Fuengorila/Malaga, and really see the country from road warriors point of view. I tried to enjoy the places more than take pictures, so there are tons of pictures of places that are missing from this trip, but in essence, we visited 12 towns, in about 7 days. I named this series SN2S 12/7 (Spain, North to South, 12 Towns in 7 Days) to mimic the European car license plates – a fitting name, I thought, if any.

We first start with Santander, which is the regular pit stop every time we visit Spain. We always have a great time when we visit here, and this time was no exception. We start with a picture of Sergio, wearing the Spanish national colors. This is quite fitting to start a picture of a road trip in Spain, I thought, and the bright national colors stands in quite stark contrast on top of the concrete background.

Jade is an awesome tattoo artist. A lot of the people I met that have been photographed for The Tattoo Project have been tattoed by Jade. I kind of like this shot, because she is always never photographed for any of the tattoo shots. She seems tough at first, but she’s really a sweetheart. She owns and runs a tattoo shop in Islip, Long Island called Ink Sanctuary. If you’re ever interested in getting a tattoo, I highly recommend that you visit.

This is Ryan. Ryan has had some work done since the last time I shot him, and he has now an ever mixed bag of tattoos. I like the mix, because they all mean something to him – there are names of people he loves, and symbols of ideologies he respects. All very good reasons to get tattoos.

Continuation of the The Tattoo Project. Waleed Is a dog trainer, and I think specializing in a breed called “Belgian Malinois”. At the time of taking this picture, he was living in Florida. I caught up with him very quickly to get the picture on the day he was flying back, and got the interview later on (via facebook, of course).

PS: Waiting on a full fledged interview from Waleed, but until then, just the picture.

The scenery in Jamaica is breathtaking. This above picture was taken at Rick’s Cafe in Negril, and this is entirely un-photoshopped other than sizing. The rainbow, the sky, the clouds and the people are as they were…. Rick’ Cafe is a hotspot in Negril, known for their world famous sunset and for the cliff that is shown here. The cliff is about 35 feet high, and looks down below into the blue-green waters. Thrill seekers are dared to take dives off the platform into these waters, and are cheered on by the local divers. The view is absolutely spectacular as you can see, and is the best place to chill out and have a beer.

During my tour on the Nine-Mile Village Walk, I met James, who is one of the tour guides. He wasn’t our tour guide, but he stuck around with us just the same. He is extremely jolly, and kept making cheesy equivalent of knock-knock jokes and then hysterically bursting into laughter at his own jokes. He was actually always laughing, and it was more rare to see him not laughing or telling jokes. However, there was a sadness to face when he was not laughing that I wanted to capture, and hopefully I did.

James also is a ‘Rasta’ and believes in the Rastafarian way of life. As you may know, Rastafarians, among many of the other rituals and traditions tend to smoke a lot of marijuana, because they believe it is sacrament that cleans the body and mind, heals the soul, exalts the consciousness, facilitates peacefulness, brings pleasure, and brings them closer to Jah.. However, many a people, as I was told by James, ends up delving into other types of drugs, and eventually succumb to addition. James, as he mentioned was one these people. He eventually pieced his life back together and is now a tour guide. He seemed melancholy about his past life, but seemed to be happy now, other than a few glimpses of sadness….

Paradise through a hole in the wall… at least thats what a lot of people would say when they see this. This is within the confines of the Bob Marley Museum in Bob Marley’s hometown, Nine Mile. As you very well may know, Bob Marley and his music are revered in Jamaica, and his lifestyle is widely emulated. Bob Marley was a devoted Rastafarian – and you may also know that for Rastas, smoking cannabis, usually known as herb, weed, sinsemilla (Spanish for without seeds), or ganja (from the Sanskrit word Ganjika, used in ancient India), is a spiritual act, often accompanied by Bible study; they consider it a sacrament that cleans the body and mind, heals the soul, exalts the consciousness, facilitates peacefulness, brings pleasure, and brings them closer to Jah. So it should come as no surprise that within the confines of Nine Mile town limits, marijuana selling and smoking is completely legal. Although there aren’t elaborate shops set up such in Amsterdam, there are ‘Hole in the Wall’ places all over the place, where you can get brownies, tea and regular joints to smoke. I would like to say that I fully exploited the situation, but I am allergic or get a bad reaction of sorts. Yes, I know. Sad.