The days were intense.
I would start early. Really early.
Always chasing the first light in Amed, not just for the light itself, but for what comes with it.
The beginning of the day, when everything starts moving.
Markets opening, kids going to school, daily life unfolding. That’s where I could start to understand the place.
Every morning, I’d take my motorbike and head somewhere new.
A different road, a different corner, just exploring.
Slowly building a sense of Amed, piece by piece. Not just visually, but emotionally, trying to understand what the place felt like.
There was a lot of improvisation. I’d see something during the day and think, okay, tomorrow morning I come back here.
That became the rhythm. Observe, remember, return.
After those early shoots, I’d take a short break, download footage, have breakfast, and then head to the club.
That was the second part of the day: the community, the games, the kids.
Then afternoons would stretch again into filming around the area, following the kids, capturing small moments.
And in between all that… I was playing too. Long pickleball matches, sweating, laughing, completely inside it.
It was exhausting. But at the same time, the energy kept building.
Every day I felt more connected, more involved, more alive inside the process.
Technically, I kept it very simple. That was intentional.
I wanted to travel light, not intimidate anyone, not create distance. So I worked with a minimal setup: one camera, one lens, a microphone.
That’s it.
I even had a small tripod, which got taken from me at the airport on the way out.
No stabilizer, no extra gear. Just handheld or static shots.
It forced me to adapt, to accept limitations, and to find a way of shooting that felt honest within those constraints.
One moment I remember clearly: one morning, while exploring, I saw the kids going to school. Not in a typical bus, more like a small truck picking them up along the road.
It felt so real, so part of their daily life, that I knew I had to capture it.
A couple of days later, with the help of someone from the club riding a motorbike, we followed them from the pickup point all the way to school.
It became one of those moments that connects everything, their life outside the court, and the life inside it.
By the time I finished filming, I was completely drained.
I had to spend a few days in Ubud just resting before flying back to Bilbao.
But that kind of exhaustion, it’s a good sign. It means you were fully in it.
