The Last Dive

The Dive. Espigó de Bogatell, Barcelona, 2014

For me, anyway, this day (Jan 16) was the last dive into photography in Barcelona on this particular trip. We will be back in Colorado by the time you read this post. The result of the afternoon’s photo walk: two images from the pier known as Espigó de Bogatell, just north of the Port Olímpic area.

I’m not sure about the meaning of the above graffiti with the diver with perfect form. The location certainly isn’t a safe one for swimming, diving, or even wading, what with the sea crashing into all the giant concrete wave-barrier cubes. It only looks calm in my photograph because a long exposure (26 seconds, 10-stop filter on a cloudy day) smoothed out the wave action. Maybe it really was the location of someone’s last dive?

A few meters away you’ll see the 1911 graffiti (image below) and this does have a certain significance. It relates to the date of the founding congress of the National Confederation of Labor (CNT) in Spain, a Marxist-anarchist movement, with Catalunya as its epicenter. You can read up on the details of this movement HERE. Spain and especially Catalunya have had a long history of anarchist and Marxist activity and thought, and you’ll still see graffiti today that reflects the fact that these ideas are not completely lifeless (though they are on life support amongst a fairly small minority of the population).

Selective Color: Yes or No?

I have mixed feelings about the use of partial color in photography…that is, painting back the color into portions of a black and white image as I did in these two pictures. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. Many times I think it is overdone and falls into the trap of gimmickry so I’m not entirely sure I should be doing it with these and my other graffiti images from the Hotel Vela area (I’ll post some of these tomorrow). I can’t seem to help myself, though, as it is a way of attracting the eye to the main subject (the graffiti) and de-emphasizing, yet still retaining, a sense of the context within the land/city/seascape.

So, the jury is still out to lunch at the Walnut Café (shameless plug for a great Boulder breakfast place) on whether or not I’ll continue to do this.

1911. Espigó de Bogatell, Barcelona, 2014