I´m saying
this is a very good photo opportunity as this colorful street festival offers
you an amount of photogenic spots in Barcelona.
Every year, for 1 week, starting on August 15th, Gracia district is transforming and converting in a graphic storyteller. Their streets are decorated with beautiful figures created by neighbors during months of handwork using recycled materials. The annual Gracia Festival, together with La Merce Festival (in September) are the biggest and important street parties in Barcelona. All the decorations are unique; every street tells you a different story and all are handmade by neighbors. It is all about joy, community and beauty; that´s why it makes it a unique photogenic spot in Barcelona.
Basically entire quarter is a playground for street photography.
Gracia Festival has the origins date back to the 19th
century, are already over 200 years old since this crazy happy event started to
happen. This popular party is known for its huge decorations of the streets
made by neighbors and receives hundreds of people that enjoy it – prepare
yourself for crowded small Spanish streets and squares.
The concept of Gràcia festival is that the streets in
the neighborhood compete to win the prize of being the best decorated street. You
need to be prepared also to find party and live concerts. Every night you find
different concerts from blues and swing, to rock and reggae.
It is a very nice party for family too as you have a lot of workshops
during the day. Some of them are for kids, some are open to adults to. You can
try different types of dance classes as Bollywood, Lindy Hop, Creative dance or
Swing. Or,if you don´t like to move your body and prefer another types of
activity… well… you can participate at painting workshops, building a 3D tower
(1st Antonio Gaudi chimney) T-shirt handmade, soap foam fight, Yoga
open class.
Yes, is a big popular party with a lot of activities for all tastes. Here you can find the full program, unfortunately is not translate in English but a Google Translation does a great job.
As I love the surprises, I´ll not reveal all the secrets of this Festival, you need to discover something by yourself tJJ. But will look over our 3 most photogenic spot in Barcelona during this big festival.
1.Photogenic spots in Barcelona during Grarcia Festival, 1st proposal – wondering on these beautiful streets. Take your camera and start to play. Here you have plenty of decorations ready to be in your photos.
You can capture the details:
Or the street atmosphere:
Or just do funny photos with your friends
2. Photogenic spots in Barcelona during Gracia Festival, 2nd proposal – parades. You have 5 parades to choose from: Mati de Festa Major; Cercavila de Festa Major; Cercavila de Sant Roc; Cerrcavia de la Convidada and Giants Parade.
TIPS: Find a good spot in front of the parade. Helps if you arrive a little earlier
3. Photogenic spots in Barcelona during Gracia Festival, 3rd proposal – Fire Run or “correfocs”. You will see dragons made from papier-mâché which bring out flame and the devils will spread thousands of sparkling fireworks.
TIP: Bring
with you long sleeves blouse, cover your hair and your camera lens. Are fireworks
all over the place and is better to be protected.
What to expect from Gracia district? Gracia is an area of up-town
Barcelona famous for its bohemian atmosphere, bustling squares and vibrant
local place.
You can reach it by Metro (Fontana station – green line L3 & Joanic station – yellow line L4).
And if you want to find elementary photo tips that make the difference in your photos, check more details here: Take Photos Like a PRO
As for some
of us the summer doesn’t mean just beach and cocktails we came with Barcelona
photography route proposal for these month. You have the chance to see:
contemporary photographers, famous artist in the working environment or how
Barcelona changed in the last years.
In that case
if you are a photography freak visiting Barcelona this summer, here is the
Barcelona photography route for you.
We start our
Barcelona photography route with one of the most famous Spanish artist.
Do you want
to immerse yourself into Pablo Picasso´s universe? If so, this photography
exhibition “Picasso, the Photographer´s Gaze” will ride you in his universe.
There you can see diverse facets of a creator who is at the same time author,
model, witness and spectator of his work and life. This photographic tour from
studio to studio aims to show the multidisciplinary richness of Picasso´s work.
You have a chronological journey based on thematic focuses; sculpture, painting
and drawing in relation with photography.
This exhibition presents more than a hundred vintage photo prints.
The price
from temporary exhibition in 6,50 euro and you can visit it on:
Our second
proposal from Barcelona photography route is about a contemporary artist born
in United Kingdom in 1966. On Mapfre Foundation you can see a very nice photo
exhibition that combines tradition and contemporary on the same photography “Richard
Learoyd. The Silence of the Camea Obscura”
Richard Learoyd creates unique and captivating photos offering as a very personal approach. His photos are the result of an artisan process with an obscure camera built by him. His work makes multiple references and winks to classic painting, which undoubtedly fans of art History will enjoy discover. Richard Learoyd (UK, 1966) is one of the most well-known contemporary photographers working today. The exhibition includes 51 works from the last 10 years and all are part of important public and private collections. Richard Leoaryd´s work mainly consists of portraits of clothed or nude models but also he worked with other topics like: animal, landscap or dark mirror photography.
Barcelona photography route proposal no 3 option is FotoColectania with “The Beauty of Lines” exhibition, where you enjoy a selection of masterpieces from the history of photography.
The visitor is invited to experience the power of the photographic line through these sublime works. The collection is present in 3 sections: Straight lines – From the controlled to the spontaneous line; Curved lines – The essence of bodies and of the line; Abstract – The line in its purest form. You have the chance to see photographs by Robert Adams, Walker Evans, Rineke Dijkstra, Man Ray, Berenie Abbott and Lee Friedlander, among other.
First
Sunday of the month – Free admission
Shared
ticket 5 euros to visit the exhibition “Richard Learoyd. The Silence of the
Camera Obscura” of Mapfre Foundation and “The Beauty of lines” – check more
details Foto Colectania Foundation
The 4rd
stop on Barcelona photography route for this summer is Palau de la Virreina we
have a photo exhibition that talks about Barcelona nowadays and how is
transforming it. “New Angles: Scenes of the Renovation of Plaҫa de la Gardunya, Barcelona; 2005-2018” is a complex project that tracks the
transformation process on Plaҫa de la Gardunya.”
As the
title indicates, the idea of a progressive and temporal organization is
inspired by Walter benjamin´s “angle of story”. The exhibition start with the
arrival of the first inhabitants of the flat in 2017 and 2018 and ends with the
oldest picture of the behind the market in 2005.
The
exhibition in FREE of charge.
Palau de la
Virreina is placed on Las Rambla, near plaҫa Boqueria, click
on the current exhibition for more info.
On MANC (Museum Nacional D´Art de Catalunya) you have the chance to see the first major retrospective exhibition of the work of Barcelona photographer Oriol Maspons; 1949-1995 “Oriol Maspons, Useful Photography”.
This photographic journey present more than 40 years of intense activity in multiple field like reportage, portrait, fashion and advertising. Oriol Maspons played an important role in the renewal of photographic language in Spain in the 1950s and 1960s.
You can
visit it for FREE every Sunday after 15:00 or with the ticket every other day,
you can buy it from MNAC
“Different Trains” is the temporary
exhibition that you will find on Miro Foundation until October 6th.
In 1988, the North American Steve Reich, one of the leading figures of minimalism,
composed piece about the Jewish Holocaust. Almost thirty years later, this
video work by Beatriz Caravaggio confers visual life on the score interpreted
by the Kronos quarter.
Last but not list in our Barcelona photography route is Art Santa Monica cultural center that you´ll find just on the main street Las Rambla. Art Santa Monica host this summer 3 photo and video exhibitions:
“A parallel word” commissioned by Joan Fontcuberta will be available until September 15th
“Echo images. Isaki Laucesta” commissioned by Carme Sais you can see it until September 15th
“AUTOGEO” a photo video installation by Matei Glass will be in Barcelona until September 8th
If you want to meet an artist in flesh and bones with all his ideas and expertise; you are welcome to meet Andrei Farcasanu photographer. He runs our photo experience in Gothic quarter “Take Photos Like a PRO” where shows you basics techniques that will make the difference in your photos. As our clients told us on TripAdvisor or AirBnB that tour is: personal, fun, no previous experience need “more than I expected”.
Contact us for your 10% discount & Free admission for kids under 12.
If you are in Barcelona this March and you are interested in: portrait photography, urban photography, nature photography, black and with, analog photography and meeting emerging or established artists this is the place to be for you.
As we are photography lovers we will start with a must to see photo exhibition that is on show till May 19th on MAPFRE Foundation in Barcelona.
An American photographer, Berenice Abbott (1898-1991) was a central figure in and important bridge between the photographic circles and cultural hubs of Paris and New York.
She is best known for her portraits of between-the-wars, 20th century cultural figures, New York architecture photography (´30s) and science interpretation (´40s).
In this complex collection you will have the opportunity
to see a sample of all of her work stages.
First
we step is in to her Portrait period. In 1921 she left America for Paris where
she continues her study of sculpture there. In Paris, she became Man Ray’s
photographic assistant. There, she saw Eugène Atget’s photographs. Her first
solo show was at the gallery Le Sacre du Printemps in Paris in 1926 and
featured portraits of the Parisian avant-garde, a practice she continued
throughout her years in Paris.
We fell in love at the texture that she gives to her
portraits. When we looked closely appeared the sensation that the figures are
coming to lives.
You have know the opportunity to see in Barcelona an important sample of her Changing New York project. Your eye can capture her interest in skyscrapers, train stations and working class neighborhoods.
Arriving back in New York in 1929, Abbott was struck by the rapid transformation of the built landscape. On the eve of the Great Depression she began a series of documentary photographs of the city that, with the support of the Works Progress Administration Federal Art Project from 1935 to 1939. During 1929-38, her photography documented urban material culture and the build environment of New York; took photos of the old before that was torn down and after when the new construction replace it.
We fell in love with the light she captures in her urban photography. We travel into the time and we imagined we are under those bridges or in that train station.
And on the last part of her collection in Barcelona you meet her work that combine the photography with the science. The science images offer art historians a chance to see the body of Abbott’s work afresh.
Abbott’s photograph of a bouncing ball used to depict gravity appeared on the cover.
As Abbott explained: ‘The science made its own design, but just patterns and just beautiful design wasn’t it at all. The principle had to come through first and foremost’. She collaborative nature of this ‘big’ photography agreed with Abbott and she called her time working on these photographs as ‘the happiest years of my life’ (Abbott & Mitchell, 1979).
We felt
in love with her sensibility that she transmits; everything is organic,
equilibrated and natural.
We recommend seeing this exhibition in Barcelona as
you will have the opportunity to see a good view through Abbott´s carrier, all
photos are black and with.
Also our photographer Andrei Farcasanu is exhibiting in Valid Foto gallery this month. If you are in Barcelona go and see his works part of the Llama exhibition.
You will discover a selection of his most famous projects “Timeless Intervention” and “The quiet sense of Nature” exhibited there. He claim that Andrei Tarkovsky quote “A poet is someone who uses an image to express a universal message.” it is representative for his work.
Timeless Interventions is a limited series of photographic installations, which incite an interruption in consciousness and a whispered memory of the future. Imperishable in context and material in form, this series of lith printed analogue photographs, surfaces from the depths of the ethereal. With images small enough to be held in the intimate space of a hand, a quiet universe where a story unfolds, these works are vastly small, and conjure precious manifestations of the sublime.
Here is a constructed iconography, with complex and archetypal elements of our natural world, performing as an immutable testament to the underlying sensibilities infused within it. Each mini-sequence emerges as a collection of phrases, reordered and disseminated in a parlance between the artist, chance, and a cognizant intervention of movement and tethering, which buoys in and out of our perception.
Until April 9th you can
see it on Valid Foto Gallery. At it is in a gallery is no fee admission and if
you are interested to see or ask more about Andrei fell free to ask the
personal gallery. Have in account that the “siesta” hour is between 14:00 and
17:00.
Last Friday,
march 22, we went on the great opening on La Virreina Centre De La Imatge where
we had the pleasure to see WOMANKIND exhibition and PHOTOGRAPHS FROM “PEOPLE OF
THE 20TH CENTURY”
WOMANKIND
shows us the image of the woman in photography. Maria Maria Acha-Kutschher
(Lima 1968) gives a new meaning to those images that, during the time, have
constructed a discriminatory icon of women since the invention of photography
in that paternalistic ambient. This exhibition is a long-term project that brings
together various series of works under the title Womankind (2010-2015).
Her working
method consists of signifying several archive images from different sources and
then introducing subtle formal changes into these.
On the
exhibition you can find eighteen photographic collages and the photo installation
365 Days which design a sequence of
images in the form of a yearlong diary.
Les Spectaulaires, the colorful collages, portrait woman as “abnormal”
by the clinical system at the time, seen as monsters and displayed in circus
shows (in which the freak show was one of their overriding episodes). These
women exemplify the processes of persecution based on difference and therapize.
On the other hand we have a characterization of the “feminine universe” where the beauty and the elegance are principal roles, where the woman is in a perpetual state of unproductive daydreams.
The
exhibition is Free of charge
Free guided
tours: Tuesday at 6 PM, Saturday and Sunday at noon
PHOTOGRAPHS
FROM “PEOPLE OF THE 20TH CENTURY” held in collaboration with the August
Sander Archiv belonging to Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur in
Cologne. This is the most comprehensive exhibition ever staged in Spain on
August Sander´s project of the same name (another reason for must to see this
in Barcelona).
In this
photo exhibition Sander decide to include in his series “Studies- The Human
Being”, in addition to the 187 photos that regularly show, some photos
dedicated to details of his models gestures, looks, postures and especially to
hands. That has rarely been presented in international museum´s context until
today.
August
Sander (17 November 1876 – 20 April 1964) was a German portrait and documentary
photographer, occupies an absolutely tutelary position in the history of
photography.
People of the 20th Century is his most legendary project, a huge archive of professional and topological portraits that reflect the industrial German society from 1910 to 1950.
In La
Virreina Centre de la Imagea you can see the rural but also the urban atmosphere,
the women portrait in her family stereotype and also the women/ man roll in the
industrial times (factory workers, bakers or weaving, laundrywoman).
Free entrance
Free guided
tours: Tuesday at 6 PM, Saturday and Sunday at noon
Guided tours by curator (Valentin Roma): April 25th, May 16 th, June 13th at 6 PM
