These were some of the areas that we hiked through to take the photographs in Catholic Imagery from the Italian Alps. Most of these were taken in the stunningly beautiful Val Codera, close to the Italian-Swiss border. A welcome antidote to the current chaos and pollution in Barcelona.
A set of Catholic Images taken from path side shrines and buildings in the northern Italian Alps. These are often found in dedicated stone constructions, built specifically to house frescos, statues and – more recently – photographs of significant relics such as the Turin shroud. There are also numerous painted frescos that adorn the sides of churches and houses. It is tempting to refer to these as “icons“, but I am sternly informed that most Catholics would insist that they are not – even if the depictions and function appear very similar to […]
There are few more poignant symbols of the problems in Barcelona than photographs taken around the newly redeveloped harbour area between Port Vell and Barceloneta. Here, tourists newly disembarked from cruise ships or disgorged from the flood of incoming flights to El Prat walk past rows and rows of “manteros” – illegal immigrants selling fake designer sunglasses, handbags, shoes, hats and numerous other dubious goods. In the background is an exclusive private marina where multi-millionaires dock their luxury yachts. The blankets (mantas) are usually linked to ropes attached at each corner, so […]
Another year and another “diada”. This is the national day of Catalunya and the focus of popular support for the Catalan independence movement. Catalunya is currently in a unnerving process of trying to ceed from Spain. A fragile coalition of nationalist parties are in power, with frequent conflicts
This is an incredibly late review for the Leica M7, which was released in 2002. Mine is an early version bought second-hand, and I have used it extensively for the last two years over which time I have shoot an average of about one film per week and traveled with it in Europe and the Americas.
Three images from Milan, Italy. These were actually the last before the problems here wiped out all the projects and planned travel for this year. That said I am gradually trying to get back to more focussed work and am now gradually getting through some processing backlog. All three images were taken with the M7 and 50mm C-Sonnar on HP5+ exposed at box speed and developed in HC110 1+63.
Three images with converging lines. Converging lines are rare in nature, and as here are often symbolic of transport and travel to a distant destination. Even if it is just the bottom of the stairs.
Not desperately pleased with the UK at the moment, and this short narrative explains something of that. I hope that I am wrong.
Almost all the cameras we use are chosen for their performance and image quality. But sometimes clean images are not what you see or want when interpreting a subject. For this set of images we have used a modified Centon 50mm lens, mounted on an old Minolta film camera. The Centon was an ultra-budget lens, badged and sold by Jessops in the 1980’s and about as far from a modern Summilux or Otus as you can imagine. It turns out to be very easy to unscrew the mounting for the front element, and re-install it in a […]
It is August, hot and everyone is on holiday. A few highly non-artistic and random shots taken on a walk up to the wild green hills hills above Singuerlín in Santa Coloma de Gramenet. Unfortunately, a strained leg meant that we did not get as far as we wanted. There is a lot of interesting insect life here – the mantis was very unexpected. At some point it would be interesting to come back specifically to take some insect macro photographs.
Six images from Sant Boi de Llobregat, on the outskirts of Barcelona. An interesting town just on the edge of the Garraf, and easily reachable from the centre of Barcelona on the metro from Plaza España. This will be the last of the weekly sets, as it is getting to difficult to juggle the conflicts between temporal and thematic aggregation – so this will switch next week to a mix of single image posts with occasional longer posts on a single theme.
Five more black and white images, taken in and around the touristic centre of Barcelona. These were all shot with the Ricoh GR II and converted from RAW to black and white in Capture One.
Five images characterised by framing, taken at the Monestir de Pedralbes on the outskirts of Barcelona. The monastery is now run as a museum, and makes an excellent alternative place to visit if you are overloaded from Gaudi and the industrial-grade tourism of the centre of the city. Aside from the history of the monastery, there are often music recitals and an excellent collection of religious art (click an image to view full-size):
A selection of images from this years Pride march in Barcelona. The route this year was longer than in the past, running from Plaça España down the Parallel and then on to Moll de la Fusta in Port Vell where the concert stages and stalls were setup. The weather was cripplingly hot – but fortunately there were numerous people spraying water over themselves and everyone else in the crowd.
Five images, loosely around the theme of movement in Barcelona, and differing opportunities. The tiles with the aircraft form part of the installation “El món neix en cada besada” (The world is born in every kiss) by the excellent conceptual photographer Joan Fontcuberta. The installation is a fotomosaic showing a kiss, made from local residents’ photographs. Here is another shot, showing a small section of the images more clearly: The full mosaic only really makes sense in colour – I will post an image of it when I catch up with the colour film processing here.
I took the above photograph on a very damp and windy ferry while in the UK last week. Suddenly it seems very appropriate.
Transient Eye 