La Almazara opened in October 2024, a few kilometres outside Ronda — and was named one of Time's World's Greatest Places 2025 shortly after. Philippe Starck (@starck ) and Touza Arquitectos (@touza_arquitectos ) designed it as a working olive mill — the oil is still pressed here — and at the same time a museum built around olive oil culture.
When I arrived for the shoot, the first thing that got me was the bull's horn, a massive Cor-Ten steel structure coming out of one corner of the building. Then the eye: cast in concrete on the facade, its pupil designed as the building's chimney — smoke comes through it when the mill is running. That eye is Starck's direct reference to the Andalusian surrealist tradition.
What I didn't expect when together with @libraproducciones we shot the exteriors from the air: something this size, this colour, against open landscape… and it doesn't take over.
It's clearly there, but it sits with the land rather than against it.
Architectural and aerial photography for Ottostumm Mogs (@ottostumm_mogs ) — Italian specialists in high-performance steel and bronze architectural systems, whose work on the project includes the large Cor-Ten steel sliding door that opens onto the panoramic terrace.
#danivottero #architecturephotography #philippestarck #laalmazara #ottostummmogs #contemporaryarchitecture #andalusia
📖 In collaboration with @docu.magazine , Sagarmatha has arrived 😉
Sagarmatha is a curated selection by @tuomas_koskialho from a larger project titled Looking Up, offering a visual journey to the heart of the #Himalayas, in #Nepal. This photobook invites you to pause, reflect, and immerse yourself in the #landscapes and quiet moments captured throughout the series.
Docu Magazine is an independent platform dedicated to documentary photography, telling stories that matter with care and depth. True to their motto, Print is not Dead, they continue to produce tangible, high-quality publications in a digital world.
✨ This is a Special Edition, signed and numbered.
📌 Get your copy via the link in bio.
#SagarmathaBook #DocuMagazine #HimalayaCulture #MountainLifeStories #RemoteLandscapes #TravelPhotography #DocumentaryPhotoBook #VisualStorytelling #HimalayanJourneys #CulturalPhotography #MountainPassages #ThroughTheLens #IndependentPublishing #HimalayanViews #DaniVottero #photobook #photoessay #photobookjunkies #sagarmatha #fotografiadocumental #fotografiadeviaje
I have always enjoyed shooting cocktails because it is a type of photography where you can really play with compositions and colour, moving away from the typical images you see everywhere today, full of elements, drops, hands and everything else. I tend not to like those as I find them visually heavy, and noisy. And eventually they end up taking the focus away from the real protagonist: the cocktail.
In these shoots for @kimptonmonteros , @casinomarbella_ and the gastrobar at @lindahotelmarbella , I decided to use colour as the primary element in the composition and consciously leave out everything else that could fill the frame without really adding anything.
For Kimpton Los Monteros, I integrated the cocktails by working with the colourful and elegant interior design of the spaces, building compositions around that relationship, almost like a Bauhaus graphic exercise applied to hospitality photography.
At Casino de Marbella and the Linda Hotel gastrobar, colour takes on all the focus: a white background, controlled shadows so they become a graphic element in themselves, and the cocktail, alone.
Same principle behind both: use color with intention, remove everything that doesn't contribute, and let the geometry do the rest.
#danivottero #cocktailphotography #foodphotography #marbella #hospitalityphotography #colorphotography #bauhaus #drinkphotography
Casa Azalia is a 1932 house in the old town of Marbella, fully restored and turned into a high-end tourist rental. The restoration was handled by architect and interior designer Helena Rocha (@helenarocha.architect.marbella ), keeping the original Andalusian and Mudéjar character of the building while adapting it to contemporary use.
It was a fun and unusual shoot because we mixed architecture, interiors and hospitality photography, plus the production of a video in collaboration with Libra Producciones (@libraproducciones ).
As the house was still closed to the public, we spent the full day in there, alternating between photography and filming following a detailed schedule.
I used mostly natural light for the images, popping fill flashes where needed because the main goal was to maintain the look and feel of the place.
#danivottero #marbella #interiorphotography #architecturephotography #hospitalityphotography #behindthework #andalusia #marbellaliving
The Nara Prefectural Government Office (1965) is easily one of my favorite Mitsuo Katayama projects: in a city so tied to traditional Japanese architecture, Katayama’s choice of raw concrete and sharp geometry perfectly marks its institutional role.
I shot this with a strictly frontal composition to stay as close as possible to the logic of the work. This framing is consistent with the project's geometry and stability, so I think the image respects and inherits the building's own structural presence.
If you look at it head-on, the symmetry and the rhythm of those repeated structural elements just work better.
I was lucky enough to have a man on a bike pass right in front of the camera during the time of the photoshoot spared for that area. That was really helpful because human presence provides the scale you need to really understand the true dimensions of the building.
One little tip for travellers: not everyone knows the rooftop is open to the public. If you’re in Nara, definitely go up because the views are great.
Architectural photography in Nara, #Japan.
#danivottero #mitsuokatayama #nara #japanarchitecture #brutalism #architecturephotography #modernism #composition #scaleshot
Architectural photography in Nara, Japan.
One of the Icelandica images that gives me the most sense of strength and emotion at the same time is this one of the church of Budir, a wooden construction painted with tar and pitch right in the middle of a lava field: its black silhouette stands against the horizon, and you start seeing it from far away, because there is nothing around it. Solitary and really eye-catching.
Its black color, so intriguing to a traveller like me, is not purely aesthetics: it is a practical choice to allow the wood to resist snow, wind and salt.
Budir was once one of the most active trading ports on the Snæfellsnes peninsula, eventually abandoned at the beginning of the nineteenth century, but today the church still remains. Built in 1848 by Steinunn Sveinsdóttir, who fought for years to get permission and funded it entirely herself. In a way, she never left, as her grave lies in the churchyard while the rest of the village has disappeared.
This story, as all the others that accompany the images of Icelandica, is what pushed me to keep going and dedicate more time and effort to the project, now already a few years in the making, but not quite there yet.
#danivottero #iceland #snæfellsnes #iglesadebudir #blackchurch #landscapephotography #architecturephotography
Luxury real estate photography is getting closer and closer to architectural and hospitality work, and this shoot for @onepropertygroupspain at Carat Sky Villas in El Higuerón is a good example of that.
It does feel like a residential building, but then it doesn't. And then it does again, because when you get into a property placed into the luxury real estate market, you really feel that the line between residential and hospitality is blurred: a reception that could absolutely be a five-star hotel lobby, coworking, an indoor pool, a spa, a Turkish bath, gardens, terraces.
So for a shoot like this, I needed to plan different types of shots, keeping in mind that the main use is real estate, because the images need to work on listings and the final goal is the sale. With that in mind, I shot with compositions in between property photography and interior design because the spaces and the materials totally deserved that level of attention, while shifting towards a hospitality feeling while shooting the pool or the terrace because that is the experience the property is actually offering. And photography, in the end, just has to keep up.
#danivottero #realestatephotography #luxuryrealestate #interiorphotography #hospitalityphotography #malaga #higueron #architecturephotography
For me, overhead compositions are among the most beautiful and powerful ways to describe food in images. The chef's graphic aesthetic becomes visible from above and it's there when you really appreciate the beauty of a plate.
The way the elements sit together, where the colours land, where you can create negative space between ingredients... that is when you truly see how careful a chef can be when creating a dish.
They are also a great photographic choice for anything without much height: soups, pastas, anything served in a deep plate.
And when you are shooting fast, maybe during service or with very little time available, it happens to be one of the more practical setups too: a single lateral light source, a reflector on the opposite side to lift the shadows, and you can move through a dozen dishes with minimal adjustments between plates.
The carousel brings together dishes from restaurants with very different culinary proposals, from Sollun Resturant in #Nerja (@sollunresturant ) and the Escondido Bar (@escondido.marbella ) at Kimpton Los Monteros Hotel (@kimptonmonteros ), to the plates of chef Daniel Leshkin (@privateched.daniel ) or the Casino Marbella restaurant (@casinomarbella_ ): all shot from above with the same single light setup, and all absolutely yummy.
#danivottero #foodphotography #gastronomyphotography #overheadphotography #restaurantphotography #marbella #andalusia
COREtec Floors is a Belgian company, one of the global references in premium hybrid flooring. Their Kingston and Lumber collections had been installed at VP Sognio Metropolitano Hotel in Madrid, and I had the opportunity of photographing them for their editorial, marketing and corporate documentation.
I worked from a low angle throughout the photoshoot: product in the foreground, enough of the room behind it to give context and scale. How much floor, where exactly to place it, how to make the product the clear focus without losing the sense of the space it lives in: the images needed to be well-balanced and clearly structured so the whole set would have consistency and appeal.
Product and interior photography for @coretecfloors.eu , installed at @vpsogniometropolitano , Madrid.
#danivottero #interiorphotography #productphotography #flooring #coretec #madrid #hospitalityphotography
Every kitchen has its own rhythm and shooting with a restaurant open means working around it while also making sure you don't disturb the service.
Flash is what really shapes food photography, but nobody really likes a burst of light while they're having dinner, so I used light shapers to keep it concentrated exactly where I needed it. For the interior shots, I worked with longer exposures and small fill flashes.
This Is Cactus (@cactusmediabcn ), a Barcelona-based creative agency, produced the campaign for this Asian fusion restaurant in Marbella.
We worked through the brief and visual direction together beforehand: mood board, references and aesthetic approach. Moody, deep shadows, vivid colour: cool and tasty vibes.
#danivottero #foodphotography #gastronomyphotography #asianfusion #marbella #restaurantphotography #hospitalityphotography
"How beautiful." That was my first thought stepping through the wrought-iron door into the patio of Don Juan Boutique Hotel. EsBoutique Hotels invited me to photograph three of their hotels in Úbeda and Baeza — a UNESCO World Heritage city known for its Renaissance architecture — and I spent about ten days there, moving between properties.
The Don Juan Hotel set the tone from the start for the whole project: a 16th-century palace with stone columns, a mudéjar timber ceiling, wrought iron details, a central fountain, and contemporary furniture, the result of a careful interior design that ties everything together.
Before I started shooting, I went through the spaces with the hotel team to agree on the approach. I used flash carefully, just enough to support the natural light coming from above as the patio had a soft, intimate quality and I wanted to keep it that way.
Hospitality and boutique hotel photography for EsBoutique Hotels.
#danivottero #hotelphotography #hospitalityphotography #boutiquehotel #ubeda #andalusia #heritagearchitecture
Pernille Christiansen, a Paris-based press agency handling Bolia's international communication, got in touch for a first commission in Madrid. A few months later, we collaborated again — this time for the Málaga showroom, housed in the Edificio Atocha — one of the most distinctive buildings in the city, designed by Rafael Moneo, the first Spanish architect to win the Pritzker Prize.
The shoot had to be completed in a couple of hours, before the store opened its doors to customers.
That morning the sky kept changing — overcast one moment, clearing the next. I worked with it, moving between exterior and interior as the light came and went, shooting outside when it opened up and coming back in when it closed again.
Inside, I used flash to balance the ambient light and keep the shadows soft, in line with the calm, quiet atmosphere of the brand.
Architecture and interior photography for Bolia International (@boliacom ), via Pernille Christiansen Paris (@pernillechristiansenpr )
#danivottero #architecturephotography #interiorphotography #bolia #rafaelmoneo #malaga #scandinaviandesign
