The act of creation in photography
I have recently photographed an almost unnoticed gem on Barcelona’s urban landscape.
The small and incredibly captivating house by Catalan architect Jeroni Granell at 75, Pàdua Street, is one of the many Modernist –the word that we use for Art Nouveau– buildings that you can find in the city by truly remarkable architects of the same period like Puig i Cadafalch, Domènech i Montaner, Enric Sagnier and, of course, Antoni Gaudí.
This 1903 house at narrow Pàdua Street is now only just a facade, awarded by its fantastic restoration works, but just a facade because of the necessary complete renovation that transformed the building interior spaces to our current living standards.
The question for me on this occasion was to realize that my very first assignment on architectural photography many years ago was photographing the apartment block at 122, Girona Street, in Barcelona by also Jeroni Granell and how I could confirm once again one of the ideas that inspire my work as a photographer, that is, the power of photographs to convey both the photographer and the viewer to a dimension created by the experience of contemplating the image itself.
Expressing this idea on the words of Ansel Adams speaking about how we photographers look at the world in front of us: “We don't make a photograph just with a camera, we bring to the act of photography all the books we have read, the movies we have seen, the music we have heard, the people we have loved”.
I found myself with my tripod and camera remembering me as a young photographer many years ago and then condensing in the moment of releasing the shutter my whole vital and professional experience just to make a photograph through which the viewers and I will communicate and know each others.
The mere act of creation in photography is looking at the world around you and it is, therefore, the act of communication and art: they all are based on provoking a reaction on the viewer to generate an exchange of experiences that is actually the spark that ignites dialogue.
The act of photography, the simple gesture of releasing the camera’s shutter, is the seed of communication.
