Balanced
Plaça dels Angels, Barcelona.
Waiting
Waiting to collect scrap metal, Carrer d’ en Xuclà, Barcelona.
Concealed
Street sellers, Plaça Catalunya, Barcelona.
Towel
Plaça Catalunya, Barcelona.
Just Sitting…
Five images of people sitting, Barcelona. Some of these people are actively working, begging or just resting. It is not always obvious which.
No son Funcionaris
A common aspiration in Spain is to become a Funcionario – a civil servant with a good salary, large pension and a job that is guaranteed. If you achieve this, you are set for life. If not, well that’s your problem. This creates a social duality that the politicians and the tourist industry seem to carefully avoid seeing. The image of Barcelona portrayed in the brochures is a tad one-sided. It gives a view of visitors strolling down La Rambla in a city filled with Gaudi architecture and expensively chic cafes and trinket stalls. But […]
Barcelona People
Some more wide-angle street photographs, taken around the Raval and Diagonal Mar on Saturday. All were shot using manual focus, manual exposure and auto-ISO with a micro 4/3 camera and 12mm lens at f4 (equivalent to 24mm at f8 in 35mm format). As usual, some work well, other less. Technically, this image is terrible. Even though it was shot at 1/250th there is a lot of motion blur. To be fair, this is a group where we have previously needed to call an ambulance for – after finding one of […]
Street Wides?
Some quick experimental street images, taken in Barcelona with a wide-angle lens using manual focus and a tight aperture. Most of the images were taken from less than a meter away and were framed without using the viewfinder. With the wide-angle, it is surprisingly easy to frame when shooting from hip or chest level. I much prefer street images that are not dominated by the interaction with the photographer, and it is quite hard to do this when so close to the subject. These were taken while walking and trying […]
Opulence & Decay
On one side, it is clear that this was once a wealthy and largely Catholic area. The city is full of We spent a long and rather damp weekend exploring Palermo in Sicily, and came away with the impression that this is a city of immense contrasts. immense, breath-takingly baroque cathedrals as well as many once impressive houses from wealthy landowners and traders. But at the same time, there is a sense of decay, with major landmarks such as Piazza Pretoria marked by buildings on the point of falling down. […]
Fireworks Abstracts
Some firework abstracts from the close of the Mercé, Barcelona. These were taken with an Olympus OM-D E-M5 and Panasonic 100-300mm, shifting the zoom during a long exposure. The process was a lot more hit-and-miss than using the Canon 100-300L, as the lens seemed frequently to loose focus during the zooming.
Infrared and the Olympus OM-D E-M5
Infrared photography can add a unusual take on images, dramatically changing the emphasis on features in landscapes and foliage. While you can convert a camera to infrared by removing its hot-mirror, you can also get quite acceptable results using just a simple filter on the front of an unmodified camera and lens. The above image was taken with an Olympus OM-D E-M5 with the standard 12-50mm kit lens and a Hoya 52mm R72 Infrared filter attached. The filter blocks almost all visible light, and looks almost completely black: Here is […]
Transient Eye 