Portrait of a man with a dark beard against a black background: sunglasses resting on his head, olive T-shirt, camera harness across his chest, hand on his chin, looking into the lens.

00 / Who I am · International sports, drone and travel photographer

Mario Garrido Torres

What I live for is delivering under pressure: reading the race, moving from spot to spot, editing wherever I am and seeing it published. For years landscape defined me, and I still love it, but it's quiet. Based in Madrid, and away for a good part of the year.

Six stops. Scroll, use the arrows or drag to move along.

Behind the camera

Mario

It used to be my hobby, and now it's turning into my life.

More about me

Landscape-format portrait of a man with a dark beard against a black background, in an olive and grey raglan T-shirt, index finger resting on his cheek, looking calmly into the lens. — Me at the end of the **Appenninica**. Same black background, same light as the riders.Photo: Javi Picaza, @jabizi_sportmedia

01 / What I do

On
assignment

With the Klimatiza Orbea Team at the XCM European Championships in Ramales and the World Championships in Trentino. With The Outdoor Lab at the Appenninica, across the Apennines. And a photo of the European champion that ran in El País.

See all the race photos

The race from the ground and from the drone, and the rider's portrait the moment they cross the line: black background and a single light.

Assignment

Klimatiza

Cycling. Two days of coverage.

A mountain biker attacks a short, steep dirt climb out of the saddle, through a cloud of green smoke, with spectators dressed as witches cheering from a stone wall and a second rider climbing behind. — **XCM European Championship in Ramales.** Green smoke, witches on the wall and the second rider on his wheel.

Press

El País

David Valero wins the XCM European Championship in Ramales. Forty minutes passed between the finish line and the photo reaching the newsroom. It ran on 12 July 2026, with the byline "Mario Garrido".

Read the article in El País

Press cutting of the article as it was published: the Mountain biking section, the headline "David Valero logra, a sus 37 años, el Campeonato de Europa de Bike Marathon", the standfirst and, below, the photo of Valero standing behind his bike under the finish arch, with its caption and a credit to Mario Garrido. — How it ran in **El País** on 12 July 2026, with my name under it.

Workshop

Appenninica MTB Stage Race

Stage race in Italy.

Layers of helmets, colourful glasses and focused faces, compressed by a telephoto lens, on the start grid of a stage race minutes before the gun. — Minutes before the start at the **Appenninica**, in Italy.

Workshop

Spanish Whitewater Championship

Workshop with Sport Media Club.

A paddler in a white helmet and the Spain jersey punches through a white-water wave, paddle raised and her eyes on the next gate. — **Whitewater**, at a workshop with Sport Media Club. A stroke right in the middle of the wave.

Portrait

The face,
at the finish

Black background, a single light and the rider just as they come in from the stage, still flushed with euphoria. Being there, that close, in that minute, is what brings out something you don't get anywhere else.

See all the portraits

Portrait of a rider with sunglasses pushed up on her forehead, hair tied back and a direct gaze, against a black background. — From **The Outdoor Lab** team, just in with her glasses still on her forehead.

Black-and-white portrait of a rider wearing a backwards cap, an earring, a white BH team T-shirt and a sports watch, roaring with laughter, arms crossed, against a black background. — From **The Outdoor Lab** team. The laugh that comes after the stage.

02 / What I know

The
rules

Most of the places people think you can't fly, you can. I keep my own knowledge base on the rules: I started it because I needed it myself before every flight, and it's checked against AESA, ENAIRE and the BOE. Nothing made up.

01 European regulations
02 Royal Decree 517/2024
03 Night flying
04 UK regulations

Before take-off

I check the area well ahead, not on the day. And there's almost always a shot to be had: a different take-off point, a different time slot, a different height. If one day there's no legal way to do it, you find out in time to set up something else, not once you're already there.

Top-down view of a circular plaza in El Retiro, with a fountain in the centre, tiny people strolling and trees all around. — **El Retiro** by drone, with the fountain in the centre and tiny people all around.

Drone · Madrid

El Retiro from the air. It's inside Madrid's controlled airspace and you can still fly there: within sight, below 60 metres, with no flight plan and without asking air traffic control for permission.

Every fact, checked against its source

AESASpain's aviation safety agency
BOESpain's official gazette
ENAIRESpain's airspace manager

It's what I check myself before deciding whether a flight goes ahead or not.

03 / The night

The
night

At night you don't improvise: the time, the azimuth and the distance are worked out before I leave home, and on location all that's left is to wait. It's the other half of what I do at a race, where you have to improvise and everything happens just once.

See all the night photos

The Milky Way over two rock formations shaped like stone mushrooms, with a figure standing on the rock arch holding a light that illuminates the stone, and wild lavender in the foreground. — The **Tormos de Selas** under the Milky Way, with a light in hand to show the scale of the rock.

An orange crescent moon, its shadowed part visible in earthshine, grazes the left-hand tower of the floodlit Alcázar of Toledo at night, with the cathedral spire to the right. — The moon in earthshine over the **Alcázar of Toledo**, worked out days in advance.

Drone light painting

Guadalajara

The drone circles the holm oak with a light on while the shutter stays open the whole time.

A lone holm oak against a cloudy dusk sky, with a continuous ring of light traced in the air above its crown and a small figure standing on the left for scale. — In **Guadalajara**. The ring is the drone circling the oak with its light on.

A stone statue on its pedestal at night, its arm raised, with a light placed by a drone just above the hand, forming a halo. — **Los Ángeles de San Rafael.** Not the moon: a light placed there with the drone.

04 / Where I go

Where
I go

Travel is where I experiment. What comes out of one trip ends up in the next assignment, almost always without me looking for it.

See all the travel photos

Travel

Iceland

The south and south-east coast.

A sharp-peaked mountain reflected symmetrically in still water, with a tiny person standing in the middle for scale. — **Vestrahorn** mirrored in the water, with a figure for scale. Stokksnes, Iceland.

The Skógafoss waterfall between two dark rock walls, with a tiny person in red at its base, arms wide open. — The whole of **Skógafoss**, and a person in red below for scale.

A person in a blue jacket, seen from behind, stands on the salt-marsh grass beside a winding channel that reflects the sky, with Mont Saint-Michel in the distance. — **Mont Saint-Michel** from the salt marsh at low tide, with the channel for a path.

Drone · Normandy

The tide going out in the bay of Mont Saint-Michel.

A person seen from behind, standing among the rocks on the bank of the Tagus at dawn, with the Vasco da Gama Bridge fading into the distance under an orange sky. — The **Vasco da Gama Bridge**, Lisbon, at dawn. February 2026.

Personal

What I look at
when I'm not working

Macro and wildlife. No rush, and the tripod set up an hour before anything happens.

Macro close-up of a bee loaded with yellow pollen on the disc of a sunflower, its florets in golden rows. — A **bee** loaded with pollen on a sunflower.

A kingfisher with an orange breast and a turquoise back, perched on the spike of a leaning bulrush, with the green background completely out of focus. — A **kingfisher** on a bulrush, with the water behind.

05 / How to reach me

How to
reach me

This is where the journey ends. If you need coverage or have a question about flying, drop me a line. I answer my own messages.

Get in touch

For coverage, tell me the event, the dates and the location. For a question about the rules or where you can fly, tell me the spot. And if you'd rather talk it through, book a call in my calendar.

hola@mariogarridotorres.com