I do not think to be mistaken if I say that I learned the technique and developed my vision to be an architectural photographer by carrying a large format camera and shooting black and white film.

Of all the films I remember using, I specially remember Kodak Tmax 100 sheet film and the incredibly fabulous Polaroid Type 55 film … It’s been a long time since then and I do surely know now that I did not express myself through black and white images again because I was not able to find a professional application where to fit them and because no digital process could persaude me of evoking the strong presence of the properly exposed and processed silver emulsion.

It was not until I began using Nik Software Silver Efex Pro 2 when I finally discovered that I could feel comfortable again exploring new black and white frames and capturing the energy of the organic simplicity of the picture elements that I constantly seek.

The Berga, Barcelona, Vilà House photographs for architect Agustí Costa gave me the opportunity to add a new meaning to my assignment color images by learning from his comments about how he was inspired by Richard Neutra’s Kaufmann House in generating his own project.

I had recently seen Julius Shulman’s Kaufmann House photographs for Richard Neutra and I thought It was the time for me to propose some Vilà House black and white pictures just to experiment and see what happened.

And I could not be happier with the results. Working in black and white has nothing to do with nostalgia: it is pure simplicity and power condensed.

Barcelona Open House has included among the projects that will be visited in its 2011 edition the two 34 Carme and 66 Sant Pere més Alt streets rehabilitation projects that I have photographed for his authors, architects Agustí Costa and Josep Llobet.

Both projects are interventions that raise from a particularly uninhibited dialogue with the preexisting dwellings to propose new and imaginative solutions in domestic space.

Carme and Sant Pere més Alt projects can be visited on October 22 and 23: you can read more details on the organization website.

Barcelona Open House is part of Open House World Wide and is one of the cities like London, New York, Chicago, Rome and Helsinki promoting through this initiative architecture as a cultural value to learn in a social and interactive way to improve  debate and exchange of points of view and the collective identity of the inhabitants of the cities.

The office of Rogers Stirk Harbour and Partners has commissioned me to take some photographs of his conversion project of former Barcelona Las Arenas bullring into an entertainment and leisure complex.

The space has been projected to become a new landmark and a monumental entrance to the city that has as main feature a dome that crowns the building as a new public square suspended in the air that is supported by the powerful orange brick mass enhanced and carefully preserved from the old historic building.

My pictures had to represent as essential requirements by the project architects in London both the decided presence of the building in its urban setting and the new and prominent floating square over the city.

Being obvious that any point of view from street level interpreted the ideas that I had to represent with very little resolution and that they could even get dissolved, it became necessary to locate some vantage points in Plaza de España and Tarragona street from where to work and graphically inscribe the large bullring oval dome on the dense and ordered urban fabric of the Barcelona Eixample limits.

Similarly, it was also vital for the graphic treatment of the images the choice of a more vivid contrast and saturation in my photographs in order to highlight the particular use of color in Las Arenas project as is characteristic and distinctive in the work of Richard Rogers.

You can see more Las Arenas photographs in the Specials section in the Gallery of the site.

September is here, autumn is getting closer and a new season starts today. Seasons may sometimes look alike, but I feel this one is going to be very different with amazing projects, assignments and ideas to explore. Just to begin this brand new season, I have uploaded some recent photographs for you to my gallery that you don’t have already seen …

Architect and interior designer Agustí Costa completed last February 2010 his 34 Carme Street project, an apartment and studio for a visual artist in Barcelona Raval area.

Carme Street project consists on a renovation of a 130 square meters apartment on the last floor of a 1870 six story modernist building: the owner project statement prioritized workshop areas that she preferred to be located where  sunlight was more prominent, while accommodation areas were intended to be at the center of the flat where natural lighting was less noticeable. … Read more …