Eixample Light, Barcelona

Light

Sometimes you are not very sure about a picture and in fact best practice may suggest you should not publish it. Your friends say they don't like it. Your daughter hates it. And still, you were there and that scene just told you something.

The problem is that you did not manage to capture it as you wished. Well, this is more or less what happened to me in some street in the Eixample quarter in Barcelona.

In the afternoon, there's this mesmerizing and slumbering light piercing through the platane or London Plane trees (platanero) that I want to pursue with my camera many times but I never quite manage to capture. At least it felt right to be there in the first place.

From my balcony: Drummers (Barcelona, Spain)

Drummers

Drummers parading past my building and captured from above, from my balcony. Changing the angle does the trick sometimes.

Lovers, Maremagnum Center, Barcelona

Lovers

Love, oh that immaterial thing so many times expressed in so many ways, so undefined and so impossible to trap in human words. Love, oh that intangible asset, that ethereal feeling that replenishes our soul with tons of universal waves connecting our every cell with other entities, creating nodes, emotional networks vibrating in unison.

This anonymous couple unknowingly is just a successful synapse transmitting signals inside a huge cosmic brain, a collective soul, sharing the mysterious power that moves our world, the abstract matter that drives our history, love.

Boy and Dog, Arc de Triomf, Barcelona, Spain

Boy holding dog near Arc de Triomf in Barcelona

Street photography is no exact science in the sense that it is less strict that landscaping or night photography for example. Not that you have to ignore every rule but you have more freedom to capture a specific scene and time for preparations is not as important as timing.

Whether you are taking quick snaps in the good old way or shooting from the hip, it gets difficult to stand there composing, measuring the correct light or pretending those people around your subject walk out from the scene so sometimes you get too many scattered things or people as in this shot.

This was taken right in front of the Arch of Triumph in Passeig de Lluis Companys, Barcelona. One thing I regret though, not to have captured the feet properly. Maybe next time. I only had time to watch the guy vacantly staring at God knows where or what while the dog seems to be doing more of the same.

Isolation, Arch of Triumph, Barcelona

Isolation

Like a ghost wandering through passers-by along Passeig de Lluis Companys, just in front of Arc de Triomf in Barcelona, goes this guy on his skateboard, isolated from the real world by his high-tech headphones. I like the gentle pose and his detached attitude.

Begging in the Streets of Barcelona

Beggar in Barcelona

Not everything is beautiful architecture, and hedonism in Barcelona. Maybe you looked the other way and you pretended not to see it but the problem is there and always comes back like a boomerang. We had precariousness before and we will have more and more every time.

Democracy is a great idea but capitalism is not democracy. The power of the people does not have to be concentrated in the hands of a few, a few that wouldn't care less about precariousness. Yes, we have parliament, we have a voting system, we approve or disapprove, we raise or lower the thumb but too often we are just the mob in the coliseum. There are still too many emperors out there pulling the strings in the dark, feeding the lions with slaves, the needed people.

Girl Waiting at Parc de la Ciutadella Gates

Girl Waiting at Parc de la Ciutadella Gates

Waiting for someone, this girl decides to sit on the curb at the entrance to Parc de la Ciutadella, Barcelona. The dusk is near and her companion is nowhere in sight. From here on you can make up your own story.