Barcelona, and indeed all of Spain, is now shut down thanks to the COVID-19 emergency. It is now illegal for people to go out of their homes other than for essential purposes such as food or medical supplies, and the police are actively enforcing the measures and fining or arresting violators.
A short set of images taken on a walk around the mouth of the River Besòs. This ought to be premium beach front in Barcelona, but a long history of industrial use means that much of it is a dramatic change from the pristine tourist beaches in Barceloneta and around Port Vell.
Barcelona’s weeks of fire: after sentences were issued against the Catalan political leaders responsible for the events around the constitutionally illegal 2017 independence referendum and the subsequent unilateral declaration of independence, the region has been rocked by both peaceful and (as shown here) rather less peaceful nationalist protests. This is a set of images shot around the upmarket central streets of Passeig de Gràcia and Via Laietana in the centre of Barcelona.
Continuing the series of night-time street photographs in Barcelona. This time I have tried using a 28mm lens, which has proven very difficult. You might expect that the wider angle would mean needing a lower shutter speed, but in practise if you try to get closer to the subject to compensate for the wider field-of-view there is no real advantage. Add to this the practical limitation that my 28mm is a stop slower than my usual lenses, and it is very hard to catch images successfully. With the typical light […]
More night-time photographs from Barcelona, again shot on Tri-X (400TX) and processed in ID-11 with the M7 and 35mm f1.4. The 35mm does make it easier to deal with focus, but it is very difficult to get close to or isolate subjects except in the narrowest of streets.
Now that the camera, film-stock and developer issues are resolved it is finally time to get around to starting the project that was originally meant to start in January – night photography in Barcelona.
A new set of night shots on film from Barcelona – this time using pushed Tri-X (400TX) developed in ID-11.
A short sequence of randomised image pairs from Sant Gervasi to Vallvidrera.
The M7 is now back from its latest repair attempt in Leica, and I have shot a couple of test films to re-check the focus calibration and metering. So far, it looks promising. The metering is now usable at ISO 400, and ISO 1600 looks ok down to about 1/8th second (a huge improvement from before, where it was failing at 1/125th). But…
A quick set of images of the Walden 7, an innovative high-density housing block in Sant Just Desvern, on the edge of Barcelona. These were taken on the way back from a walk along the hills at the edge of the city, with a conscious detour to see the block that was just possible before heavy thunderstorms arrived.
Another short set of push-processed film images, showing some fragments of urban Barcelona. These are from some more test rolls looking to improve the processing and improve contrast (using Delta 400 in DD-X 1+4).
Still experimenting with colour processing in Capture One… this time with a series of fragmentary images taken around Benasque, a beautiful village in the Spanish Pyrennees.
The first of an occasional series looking holistically at the transitions between intra and extra-urban spaces.
A short set of film images taken around the Glòries area of Sant Martí, Barcelona, and which form a coda to the previous piece about the Torre Glòries. Taken with the Leica M7, 50mm C-Sonnar and Ilford Delta 400.
Two sets of images from two very different festivals, shot in Barcelona. The first, images taken at el Parc del Clot from an Eid al-Fitr gathering at the end of Ramadan (click on the gallery to view individual images):
The second set of night-time street images taken in Barcelona and shot on high-ISO film. These are images of an illegal street market late at night (around 10pm) at the Rambla del Mar, at the harbour. The sellers are usually illegal immigrants, and most of the goods are fake clones of branded handbags, shoes, sunglasses and Barcelona FC shirts. All images taken with the Leica M7 and Zeiss ZM 1,5/50 with Ilford Delta 3200 metered at EI3200 and processed in ID-11 as if shot at EI6400.
Transient Eye 