A few simple pictures taken early in the morning along the beach between Port Olimpic and Barceloneta. This is quite a good time of year to catch the transient morning light as it is no longer necessary to get up at 4am…

Shot with the DSLR rather than film so that I could use a short-telephoto lens (here the excellent Canon 135mm f2). The lens gives a nice telephoto compression that seems to work well with the relatively empty shots, suiting the early morning tranquility. There are surprisingly few ape-descended life forms people at the beach at this time, and combining the telephoto’s compression of perspective with the distant framing of the subjects helps create detachment and captures the sense of  emptiness.

This contrasts markedly with the much more intimate 35mm and 50mm street photographs that I normally post – pictures normally taken in the urban Barcelona later in the day and with many more people around. I think it illustrates quite nicely how using a longer focal length is not simply a means to shoot from further away, but a tool that can help completely change the feel of the image.