“Swept by an incredible wind,” is how photographer Raoul Iacometti describes Fuerteventura, one of Spain’s Canary Islands, a locale he and dancer Rebecca Erroi share a passion for. Erroi came to Iacometti’s photography workshop in Fuerteventura in 2021; they began exchanging ideas and returned to the island in 2022 with two suitcases full of black and white sheets, hoping to capture the dramatic might of the island’s epic winds with its backdrop of beautiful sand dunes, beaches, and lava fields. They titled the project “Wind [eternal movement].”  

“I know Fuerteventura very well,” Iacometti says, “and have learned to recognize its updrafts and downdrafts, its horizontal currents, the sudden bubbles of warm air, its unpredictability.” They spent the week chasing the wind and the light across the island from early morning until sunset.  

Wardrobe: Instead of flowy dresses, Erroi wore culottes, bodysuits, leggings, and chest bands, and used large sheets, some of which were 16 feet long, as props to harness the wind for photos. They chose to use just black and white materials for a uniform look.

Equipment: Iacometti used two Canon EOS 5D Mark III bodies, one with a 24-70mm f/2.8 lens and the other with a 70-200mm f/2.8 lens.

Challenges: The clouds moved constantly in the wind, which shifted the light quickly from bright to shadow. The sheets were made of a heavy stretch fabric that Erroi managed to lift “as if they were light silk,” he says. They didn’t have an assistant, so they sometimes enlisted the help of onlookers to throw the sheets into the wind.

Successes: Iacometti says, “What I love about this project is that it is based precisely on this: the emotion of feeling almost as one, immersed in the wind, the ocean, the volcanic earth, the black beaches, and the scents of a still wild island.”

Amanda Arnold is a senior editor.