Urban
A short photo-essay using urban fragments, shot in and around the Barcelona that the tourist brochures do not seem to show.
Fragments
Five fragmentary images taken in Barcelona.
October
It has been a difficult October, as most of the month has been spent in Italy with multiple trips to deal with family health problems – fortunately all now resolved successfully. This has meant that photography has been very constrained, both in time and also by the ability to carry camera gear on easyJet, so these are a somewhat random set taken with walks around the area of Sesto San Giovanni in Milan and also on a brief excursion to Como. All images taken with the GFX100s and GF45, GF55 […]
Quarantined
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.
Besòs
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.
State of Independence XVIII
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.
Barcelona Dark VI
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 […]
Barcelona Dark II
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.
Barcelona Dark I
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.
Pushing 400TX
A new set of night shots on film from Barcelona – this time using pushed Tri-X (400TX) developed in ID-11.
Transition Space II
A short sequence of randomised image pairs from Sant Gervasi to Vallvidrera.
Back to film?
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…
Walden
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.
Fragments of a Life
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).
Benasque Fragments
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.
Transition Space I
The first of an occasional series looking holistically at the transitions between intra and extra-urban spaces.
Transient Eye 