The Ares Estuary at Dusk from Cabanas: Photograph and Interpretation
The sun has just gone down over the Ría de Ares. From high ground in Cabanas the view runs down over rooftops, gardens and small fields to a dark line of pines, and beyond them the estuary opens out towards the sea, still holding the last orange of the sky. On the left a wooded shore is already strung with lights, the street lamps in the town below are coming on one by one, and a few clouds hang dark against the afterglow. This first image is an interpretation, painted in loose watercolour washes; the photograph it grew from appears further down.
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Photographer: Sapiens Verbum
Subject: The Ría de Ares at dusk, seen over the rooftops of Cabanas towards the mouth of the estuary
Location: Cabanas, A Coruña, Galicia, Spain
Medium: Colour photograph and a watercolour interpretation of the same frame
Series: Ares Estuary
The watercolour keeps the camera's view and stretches it into a long panorama. The sky becomes the loudest part of the picture: bands of orange and gold under clouds blotted in violet and blue, with the paper showing through at the top. The houses below turn into small blocks of cream, terracotta and white, the fields into washes of yellow and green, and the lamps into round dabs of light. The edges are left ragged and splashed, as if the painter had to stop when the colour left the sky. It is the same estuary at the same hour, told with a warmer and freer hand.
Cabanas, at the head of the ría
Cabanas (Cabañas in Spanish) lies on the inner shore of the Ría de Ares, facing Pontedeume across the mouth of the river Eume. The two towns are joined by the long stone bridge over the Eume, and Cabanas is known above all for its beach, A Madalena, a long sweep of sand backed by a pine grove. From the slopes behind the town the land falls away towards that shore, which is why the view in both images can travel over roofs and trees to the open water.
Looking out from here, the ría widens away from the viewer towards the Atlantic. Ares and Redes lie on its northern shore, and beyond the mouth the estuary joins the wider bay that the Ría de Ares shares with the rías of Ferrol, Betanzos and A Coruña. Inland, the Eume runs down from the Fragas do Eume, one of the best-preserved Atlantic coastal forests in Europe. This is the country of the Rías Altas, where the sea reaches far into green hills and the light at the end of the day can turn the whole estuary to copper.
The photograph behind it
This is the frame as the camera recorded it, a few minutes after sunset. The upper sky is still pale blue, fading to peach and orange along the horizon, with a handful of grey clouds drifting across it. The water of the ría is calm and holds the same orange glow. In the foreground the houses, the trees and a few garden sheds are already in shadow, picked out only by the warm light of the street lamps, while a tall white building stands out on the right. The interpretation above keeps the same shoreline, town and sky, and changes the colour, the format and the touch.
See more of the Ría in motion
Sunset over the Ría de Ares: a 4K time-lapse. Watch on YouTube
Our travel channel has also filmed the roads around Cabanas:
- A drive from Ares to Cabanas and Fene in 4K (64 min)
- A drive through Ares, Mugardos, Cabanas, Pontedeume and Fene in 4K (94 min)
For the bridge that links Cabanas with Pontedeume, see Pontedeume's medieval stone bridge by night, and for the same estuary from the hill on the other side of the Eume, Pontedeume from Cabria, Nogueirosa. Further out towards the sea, storm clouds gather over the Miranda Islands.
See the watercolour of the Ares estuary framed on your wall. Both versions of this frame are available as museum-quality prints, canvas or posters, and both can also be licensed for your own project.
Buy the Interpretation
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See Cabanas on Google Maps
Part of the Ares Estuary series.
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