I’ve been back from Ibiza for a little while now, but part of me still feels like I’m there.

Ten days somehow passed in what felt like three days and an entire summer at the same time.

I came home with thousands of photos, hours of video, beautiful new work and far too many little memories to fit into one post. Some came from the shoots. Others were simply quiet mornings, swims, sunsets and time spent exploring the island with Wendy.

So this isn’t really the complete story of the trip.

It’s just a little bit of everything.

A few moments that already feel special, a few previews of what I’ve been working on and a small glimpse of the Ibiza summer I somehow brought home with me.

That is probably one of my favourite things about Ibiza. Every day feels like it could suddenly become something.

A shoot. A swim. A drive to somewhere beautiful. A quiet morning beside the water. Or a small adventure that starts without much of a plan and somehow ends with wet clothes, sandy camera equipment and another completely full memory card.

Even when nothing was properly scheduled, it always felt like something might happen.

We could throw the paddleboard into the car, drive until we found somewhere that looked interesting, meet someone for a spontaneous shoot or simply disappear into the water for a few hours.

Some days started long before sunrise. Other days seemed to revolve entirely around deciding where we should swim next.

And then, of course, there was the work.

Although I realise that nobody reading this is going to look at these photos and think I had a particularly difficult time.

Apparently, waking up in Ibiza, visiting beautiful beaches and hanging out with hot girls in tiny bikinis now counts as work.

It’s a tough profession, but someone has to make the sacrifice.

There were early alarms, heavy camera bags, location planning, driving, filming and many more hours of editing waiting for me afterwards. But I’m fully aware that from the outside it probably looks like I spent ten days swimming, taking photos and surrounding myself with attractive women wearing very little.

And honestly, from the inside it occasionally felt exactly like that too.

That balance between creating things and simply enjoying the trip was probably what made the ten days feel so full.

Some moments were planned around the light, the location and the clothes someone was going to take off approximately five minutes later.

Others were just Wendy and me exploring, swimming, spending far too much time on the paddleboard or stopping somewhere because it looked too beautiful to drive past.

Some of my favourite photos from the trip are not part of any proper shoot.

They are just little pieces of the days we spent there. Wendy standing beside the water. The two of us together on a pier. A quiet view that made us stop for a few minutes. A photograph taken because the moment felt good, rather than because it needed to become content.

Not every good moment needed to become a shoot.

And not every photo needed to become part of a polished gallery.

Still, there is an almost ridiculous amount from the trip that nobody has seen yet.

Entire shoots are sitting untouched on my hard drives. There are videos I have barely watched, photographs I only remember taking because I briefly saw them while importing everything, and little moments that may eventually become posts of their own.

There are full mornings, sunsets and stories still hiding in folders.

Some of it will appear on Patreon. Some will become videos, galleries or future Heatwave Diaries posts. Other images might stay hidden for months until I stumble across them again and suddenly remember exactly how that particular morning, swim or sunset felt.

That might be one of my favourite things about photography.

You don’t only bring the photographs home.

You bring the entire experience back with them.

The heat. The salt on your skin. The stupid jokes. The tired drive home after sunrise. The way the water looked. The people you shared it with. The moments that seemed completely normal while they were happening and somehow became important afterwards.

There is still so much hiding on my hard drives.

Photos I’ve barely looked at, videos I haven’t properly gone through and entire shoots that, for now, exist mostly as memories and very full memory cards.

I’m slowly working my way through all of it.

The full shoots, videos and stories will come soon.

For now, this is Ibiza without too much explanation.

Arnold ✌🏼

P.S. Life is what you make of it. So make it fun, make it memorable and occasionally grab it by the balls without any clothes on.