Periodismo
Friday April 20th, 2012 03:28 PM
I shot my first wedding of the year last weekend when Argiñe and Pedro celebrated their marriage in La Vieja Bodega, Casalarreina, La Rioja. The photos are a bit different than normal as they were commissioned by the restaurant owner, Ángel, for his new website.
Accordingly I spent more time than normal taking photos of the reception rooms before the couple and guests arrived. I also lingered more than usual in the kitchen which had the unexpected but highly welcome advantage in that they fed me!
My thanks to Argiñe and Pedro for “dancing” with me in the five-minute shoot we had together – you can see from the resulting photos what a relaxed, fun couple they are.
Apart from the photos for the website, I’ll also give Ángel an album and a short video slideshow to show to future wedding clients.
Tags: boda, Casalarreina, España, fotografía, fotos, La Rioja, Periodismo, photographer, Wedding, wedding photographer Spain
Posted in Commercial, La Rioja, Weddings | No Comments
Tuesday January 17th, 2012 04:02 PM
How do you unlock your creative juices and improve your abilities to take emotionally moving and intimate photographs? This was at the heart of a course for wedding photographers that I attended last week in Astorga, Castilla y Leon.
Taller La Mirada was hosted by the Brazilian wedding photographer, Vinícius Matos, whose work has attracted worldwide admiration in recent years. Aside from being an excellent photographer, Vini argues that you improve through an honest self-assessment of your strengths and weaknesses. Only by understanding what holds you back can you learn how to move forward, he reckons.
On the first day the 12 photographers were sent out blindfolded – so they’d use their other senses for a change. The next two days were devoted to documenting 12 local people as they went about their daily lives, including a policewoman, politician, artist and elderly lady in a retirement home.
My job, as photographer of the course, was to follow all 12 photographers as they went about their tasks. Apart from the photos here, you can see my three-minute show of the course on You Tube.
The photographers on the course were:
Paolo Bocchese, Virginia Gimeno, Rares Pulbere,
Susana Barberá, Sergi Escrivá, Alfonso Azaustre,
Horacio Arriaza, Santiago Vega, Albert Pamies,
Daniel Garcia Lopez, Nelson Philipe, Antonio Luna Castaño.
Tags: Astorga, boda, Castilla y Leon, fotógrafo, fotoperiodismo, Periodismo, photographer, Reportaje, Vinicius Matos, Wedding
Posted in Castilla y Leon, Portraits, Travel, Weddings | No Comments
Tuesday March 22nd, 2011 04:23 PM
For some time now I’ve been meaning to find out about pelota, a sport which essentially combines squash and fives and is to all extent and purposes the national game of La Rioja, Navarra and the Basque Country. Driving round northern Spain I’ve regularly been taken aback by these enormous courts, which dominate small villages and dwarf the local church.
So I was delighted when the Diario La Rioja asked me to photograph an important game in Ezcaray last Friday. The doubles game, a semi-final in the professional league, was noteworthy as three of the four players come from Ezcaray itself.
Due to it being live on TV, it didn’t start until 10.15pm. My deadline for the paper was 11.30pm meaning I had just over an hour to take the photos, sort them, process them and email them in. It was like working the night shift at the Guardian once again where time seems to speed up as deadline approaches. Do the basics well and remember to keep breathing. That was what used to get me through.
So, needless to say, I didn’t have time to savour the game nor even work out the scoring. I had to leave before the end with the tension in the stadium rising and just when I was beginning to get into the groove. But I saw enough to get the bug and I’ll definitely be back.
Tags: corresponsal, Diario La Rioja, Ezcaray, fotoperiodismo, fotos, journalism, La Rioja, Pelota, Periodismo, Reportaje
Posted in La Rioja, News, Press | No Comments
Saturday March 5th, 2011 06:23 PM
Logroño’s meat and veg market, el Mercado de Abastos, was full to the rafters on Thursday night but, generally speaking, it wasn’t the usual fare on people’s shopping list. Though a few customers were doing the daily shop, most had come to sample new wines from last year’s harvest which are just going on sale.
More than 20 family wineries from La Rioja were taking part in the XIV Cata Presentación, organised by Bodegas Familiares de Rioja, on the building’s top floor. Once you’d forgotten the background smell of raw meat, sampling the delights from table to table was a wonderful experience.
I was taken aback by the sheer number of young people there. One did admit that the offer of as much wine as you could drink after paying the €5 entrance fee was a key attraction. Others brought along bread and chorizo in plastic bags and dined out as well.
In a country where wineries are in constant battle with the breweries, some bodegas are targeting younger drinkers as a potential growth area and pushing their younger and less-expensive wines accordingly. They’d have been happy with last night’s crowd.
Tags: bodega, fotógrafo, fotos, La Rioja, Logroño, Periodismo, photos, Rioja, Spain, vino, wine
Posted in Events, La Rioja, News | No Comments
Friday January 7th, 2011 10:06 PM
One of the things that has always fascinated me about Spain in general but Barcelona in particular is the large number of independent shops that seem to thrive despite competition from large chain stores or out-of-town malls.
Barcelona’s Barrio Gótico – or old centre – is full of such shops which, at the extreme, may specialise in only one product. Arlequí Màscares, in Plaza St Josep Oriol, sells only masques, many made in-house. Not far away, the hat shop Obach, was attracting a constant stream of customers through its doors when I passed by as was Subur, a shoe shop that sells only one style of shoe, albeit in a variety of colours.
In Calle de Pi is Drap, which sells dolls houses and miniature furniture and figures destined to live in them. And if you get peckish after all the walking required between shops, a few doors up is Pineda, a café which specialises cured meats.
All this is not to say that Barcelona is bereft of department stores and high-street names – in fact they were packed with people on the first day of the sales when I took these pictures – but the fact that the city is able to accommodate both is surely one of the factors Barcelona’s continued success.
Tags: Barcelona, Catalonia, Catalunya, España, fotografía, fotógrafo, fotoperiodismo, Independiente, journalist, Periodismo, photographer, Reportaje, Shops, Spain, Tiendas, writer
Posted in Catalunya, Travel | No Comments
