Beachside Dreaming #3
At the beach in Barceloneta.
Beachside Dreaming #2
At the beach in Barceloneta.
Beachside Dreaming #1
The beachfront at Barceloneta.
EMMSA – Española de Montajes Metálicos, S.A.
One of many silent redundancy protests in Barcelona – this one against layoffs without pay by EMMSA. These kind of scenes seem to be getting worse in recent months, with numerous businesses closing (not least the Lauren cinema at Plaça de la Universitat, and probably we will soon see the closure of Fotoprix). Protest banners have become so common that for many people here they have become just another piece of urban visual noise to ignore, much like the advertisements and graffiti throughout the city.
Heat Haze
Another of the more abstract long-exposure motion images, this from La Rambla. This is Ilford HP5+, with an exposure of (probably) 1/4s at f16 with a stack of ND filters to cut down the light. This will be the last new film upload for a while, as it has now become too hot here to process sensibly. The last two films were processed at an ambient temperature of 28c, which is making the developing times too short even with very dilute chemicals – this at 8am with the AC running at full power…
Speed
Speed-skaters racing at the Fiesta Mayor en el Raval, Barcelona. Once a year the roads around the Rambla del Raval are closed to make a mini-racetrack for skating. The skaters are astonishingly quick, and faster than most cyclists along these roads. I really like the character of these deliberately unsharp images – something about the film grain seems to work very well with the blurred backgrounds and slightly abstract subjects.
Cementiri de Montjuïc
A few images of the cemetery on the Monjuïc, Barcelona, taken last weekend at the Barcelona photowalk. These were shot on HP5+ film. Unfortunately, the developing did not go well, as it appears that the developer has asphyxiated (or, more correctly, oxidised) from two weeks of storage in the 30c+ temperatures here. The result was a set of very very underdeveloped negatives, and it was surprising that there was anything salvageable from the scans. The underdevelopment caused two problems: (i) very low contrast negatives, and (ii) soft, almost grainless images. Surprisingly, you can pull […]
Tourist Snap
Barcelona is one of the most photographed cities in the world, where anyone can take a picture and even the bars are even going so far as to put logos and banners to suggest taking a picture from a certain vantage point. Because people can not make that judgement for themselves? Walking back this evening through the Parc de la Ciutadella, every time that I raised the camera and took a photograph it seemed there was a tourist with a cellphone or Rebel DSLR watching who decided that whatever I […]
Dust
Clouds of dust from sandblasting a building. With the current temperatures here, everything feels like dust…
Ex Vaga
The recently resolved usher’s strike at the Liceu, Barcelona. It is not clear what they really won, but it quite surprising that the unions are still able to organise a two-month strike in this way given the increasingly right-wing politics of both Spain and the European “Union” at large (I use quotes deliberately, given the appalling situation with Greece). The second photograph was very poorly developed. Unfortunately, the next two rolls of film suffered serious underdevelopment due to using developer that had probably been stored too long (it does not help that […]
Blur
Las Ramblas, Barcelona. Ilford Delta 100, processed in Ilfosol 3 1+14 for 4:30 at 26c. The exposure was about 1/5 second, panning rapidly with a 50mm lens. I would bet that Tsipras and Varoufakis feel like this today…
Barcelona Pride 2015
A short set a photographs from the Barcelona Pride march, 2015. The march felt smaller in scale than previous years. In part this is because the march seems strongly diluted by non-LGBT politics. I think that there were more Catalan Independence flags than rainbow flags, driven in part by a large presence from groups such as the Assemblea Nacional Catalana and ERC. There were also people promoting Animal Rights that seemed only tangentially connected to the original motivations for these marches. And perhaps that is a good thing, as it reflects the immense […]
Besos de Barcelona
Migrants selling handbags, jewellery and selfie sticks, Rambla del Mar, Barcelona. The writing roughly translates as: With kisses I understand But sometimes not The interrupted sleep Migration is not a crime (I would be interested if anyone can more accurately translate “la duermevelas”).
Blood on the Floor
The night of Sant Joan is normally an occasion for fireworks and parties in Barcelona. However, you do not expect to get up in the morning to find that someone has been injecting drugs just outside of your door. By the time we went out the addict had gone, leaving behind the abandoned paraphernalia and a copious amount of blood on one of the lower parts of the stairs. Barcelona’s Ciutat Vella (the old town) has serious problems, ranging from pickpockets and drunken tourists at one end, to hard drugs at the other. The local […]
Heat
It is unbearably hot at the moment. I think we need something like these at home – large fans blowing water vapour at the end of a marathon circuit in Barceloneta…
Rita
Transient Eye 