Lovers of Teruel · Bodas de Isabel · The Journey That Changed Everything



I never imagined that a short magazine article on an airplane would bring me to a place I would one day call home.

At the time, I was living in Los Angeles and working with writers and literary agents, always searching for stories that might one day become films. During a flight, I came across a short article about a medieval festival in a small Spanish city called Teruel. Every February, the city transformed itself to tell the tragic love story of Diego de Marcilla and Isabel de Segura—the Lovers of Teruel. I had never heard of either the city or the legend, and I couldn't understand why something so extraordinary remained almost unknown outside Spain.

I couldn't stop thinking about it.

One question led to another. Curiosity became research. Research became emails. Then, while traveling to photograph a wedding in Florence, I decided to make a detour to Teruel. I thought I was coming for a weekend. Instead, I found a place that quietly changed the course of my life.

Today, every February, Teruel returns to the thirteenth century. Thousands of volunteers become merchants, musicians, knights, artisans, and nobles as the story of Diego and Isabel unfolds once again in the very streets where the legend began. But what captivated me wasn't simply the spectacle.

It was the people.

Neighbors gave up weekends to become part of the story. Children grew up believing the festival belonged to them because, in many ways, it did. Watching them, I realized I wasn't witnessing a historical reenactment. I was watching a community keep its history alive.

Looking back, it's almost impossible to believe that one article on an airplane could lead me here. I came to photograph a medieval festival. Instead, I found a community that welcomed me, a country that changed the way I saw the world, and a life I could never have imagined.

Every photograph on this website exists because I decided to take that detour.