For a long time I was looking how to shoot a photograph like the one I post today, and just when I didn’t expect it, the opportunity become reality straightaway in front of me.
Sant Salvador. Baix Penedès.
This picture belongs to Album Nature
Glòries catalanes square. Barcelona.
This picture belongs to Album Imperfect Present
I have selected a well known poem by Vicent Andrés Estellés to complement the picture. The poem is from the book “Llibre de meravelles” (in catalan):
PROPIETATS DE LA PENA (Assumiràs la veu d’un poble)
ASSUMIRÀS la veu d’un poble,
i serà la veu del teu poble,
i seràs, per a sempre, poble,
i patiràs, i esperaràs,
i aniràs sempre entre la pols,
et seguirà una polseguera.
I tindràs fam i tindràs set,
no podràs escriure els poemes
i callaràs tota la nit
mentre dormen les teues gents,
i tu sols estaràs despert,
i tu estaràs despert per tots.
No t’han parit per a dormir:
et pariren per a vetlar
en la llarga nit del teu poble.
Tu seràs la paraula viva,
la paraula viva i amarga.
Ja no existiran les paraules,
sinó l’home assumint la pena
del seu poble, i és un silenci.
Deixaràs de comptar les síl·labes,
de fer-te el nus de la corbata:
seràs un poble, caminant
entre una amarga polseguera,
vida amunt i nacions amunt,
una enaltida condició.
No tot serà, però, silenci.
Car diràs la paraula justa,
la diràs en el moment just.
No diràs la teua paraula
amb voluntat d’antologia,
car la diràs honestament,
iradament, sense pensar
en ninguna posteritat,
com no siga la del teu poble.
Potser et maten o potser
se’n riguen, potser et delaten;
tot això són banalitats.
Allò que val és la consciència
de no ser res si no s’és poble.
I tu, greument, has escollit.
Després del teu silenci estricte,
camines decididament.
One of the characteristics elements of the Maresme area are the “rials”. A “rial” is a short and stationary water flow. A “rial” basin is normally dry but during the storms, when it transport a large amount of water towards the sea.
Due to the “rials” stationary condition, they have been abused by humans since ancient times, and specially during the construction boom in the last decades of the XX century. Today it is not possible to find a non urbanized rial, even though some of them have sections that has not been altered yet.
In Arenys de Mar village we find the “rial llarg”. It is not a rial to go to relax and take a walk, because it is fully urbanized and there is no vegetation. Although this fact, it is a place that awakes on me a lot of thoughts: It never let me indifferent.
The “rial llarg” was heavy transformed by human, destroyed we could say. Today, the remains of an ancient time of splendour, like the old gate that is shown in the picture, remember me that all human related is brief, temporary.
The “rial llarg” is a ruined location, and for me, an example of our behaviour as human race.
Arenys de Mar. Maresme.
This picture belongs to Album Imperfect Present
The last time I used a film camera was about 2006. For me, and for many other photographers, digital photography suddenly finished the chemical photography for ever. Or maybe not?
Few months ago, the Agrupació fotográfica d’Arenys de Mar, proposed to their members a project that required large format prints. Two meters and a half sized photographies were too much for the aged 10 megapixel sensor of my camera, so I had to find another way to perform the job.
The first and probably the easiest alternative was to join several images, making a mosaic. This technique is easy but, in order to get a professional result, it is necessary to deal with parallax problems and also, an intensive work in the digital lab is required. I have to admit that it didn’t seduce me.
The second option was the medium format photography. Any of the actual cameras from Phase One or Hasseblad had solved my problem, but they were and are out of my budget. I’m an amateur photographer and I have no income in return for my photographic work so I can’t account for renting or buying these cameras.
The solution was my family. My uncle is a retired photographer: he had his camera stored in a cupboard, but ready for work like it was the first day.
And this is why I started to take pictures with a 1961th Rolleiflex K7F camera.
The K7F is a TLR camera with a Carl Zeiss Planar f2.8 lens and an integrated selenium photometer. It was an incredible piece of technology when it was build and it is a collectors object of desire today.
The feelings of comming back to the film photography had been superb! It is amazing how fast we forget the past and we get in the habit of the new technologies. To shoot the Rollei means to loose the right now and the speed of the digital cameras, but also means to recover the pleasure of slow heat cooking your photography.
I will repeat the experience for sure. It is a pleasure to watch the world through the giant and inverted Rollei viewfinder. It is a pleasure to spend time speaking with people that ask me about the camera or explain me their photographic memories while I’m taking photos and it is also a pleasure the loud click that comes from the Rollei aged, but healthy shutter.
My first shoot with the Rollei:
Arenys de Mar. Maresme.
This picture belongs to Album Medium format
7è Memorial Antonio Miguel Ramírez. Pals. Baix Empordà.
This picture belongs to Album Other
La gola del Ter. Baix Empordà.
This picture belongs to Album Social
