Cádiz II

CADIZ II

FishMarket

 

Cádiz Cathedral

 

Tavira Tower

 

 

Sight of the Old Town

 

The second day of 2018 was just wonderful. We started the day at the fish market and looked
at some freshly caught cazón – shool shark – which tastes so good when fried. The fishermen
just set up their stands. Many stores were closed but we managed to get bread and cheese for our
breakfast.

Inside the old cathedral the light came in through the large windows and illuminated the
roman catholic church with a soft and subtle light. The cathedral took a long time to build
and so the styles changed during the process which can be seen and is quite interesting.

Up the Tavira tower you can see over the entire city of Cádiz. The harbour with its cruise ships,
the big bridge, the new part of town with all its highrises and the long beach area between
Cádiz and the mainland of Spain.

The sunshine in January was a pleasant change to the grey and depressing weather
Germany has to offer this time of year. So we walked all across the old town and ate tapas
before we headed back to the Cathedral to climb its tower for a spectacular sunset view.

It was the last night in Cádiz and we celebrated with the friends we visited and packed
our things for the journey to Sevilla the next morning.

Cádiz

„Do you want to join me visiting my best friend in Cádiz for New Year’s Eve?“ Tatjana asked me.
I never even heard of this town in Andalusia before but couldn’t be any happier to have an excuse
to leave gray and cold Deutschland behind and fly to the south of Spain.

We booked our flight to Sevilla and didn’t even know the right pronunciation of the city we were about to visit.

The 28th of January couldn’t have been more dull and looming. As our early morning flight rose above
the clouds covering not only the airport but also all the people still recovering from christmas festivities,
we celebrated the rays of sunlight entering through our plastic window.

Sevilla was welcoming us with 20°C and not one cloud could be seen, neither in the sky nor in our flawless
vacation moods. So we head out to the train station and boarded a regional train to Cádiz.

Our beautiful AirBnb was situated right in the heart of the city next to Torre Tavira. An old watchtower,
left from the literal golden days of Cádiz when this little sleepy town was the center of the trade-routes
with the Americas.

The town is divided into a small round half-island, home of old and run down buildings, narrow streets,
a market place, a cathedral, an abundance of watchtowers, a castle, and the pride jewel – a waterfront
where a scene of James Bond with Halle Berry was shot, pretending it was Cuba.

We had the best of days. We wandered through and around all the little parts of the old town,
had sundowners at the waterfront, ate fried dog-shark and best of all only wore our t-shirts in december.
NYE could come with ease, what a perfect way to end the year…

to be continued.

pals

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when it started raining in girona my plans to go to the pyrenees quickly changed and i decided to hop in my vw bus and drive towards sunny weather. i got a tip on instagram from my friend lisa to visit pals.

pals is a small town not far from the ocean and one feels like going back in time when walking up to el pedro and the torre. i was very lucky to arrive with a bus load of german retirees. it was so much fun listening to their conversations and watch them flood the streets of this peaceful little village.

it felt like they were walking wallets to the people selling ceramics and other local products in the little stores inhabiting the old stone buildings.

i often set my digital camera to black and white. it is very useful to understand the contrast and since i always shoot raw i can easily convert to color. this time i decided not to and applied an ilford hp5 filter of vsco.

 

girona

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pforzheim in the south of germany has about as many inhabitants as girona, a river flows through both cities and the layout is almost the same. girona has one significant difference – it looks pretty and has much more charme. but basically the two towns are the same. even the landscape and the periphery resemble each other.

since i am on my trip i always compare the new sights, sounds and people to things i already know. it is quite fun to find similarities to things you are already accustomed to in an environment that is totally new to you.

girona is a wonderful city. i am lucky i was there when it wasn’t overrun with tourists looking for the places where game of thrones was filmed and eating overpriced meals in the old part of the town.

what i really like to do is to sit down and just watch the people passing by and take the same picture over and over again, just with a different protagonist that presents itself to me and my camera. it is something i started in berlin and i really want to continue. it is part of my „kleine arbeiten“ project. the pictures look very good when hung in a row as the horizon and background repeat.

oh and i had a catalan sausage for lunch at mononcle . so delicious!

L94

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L94 is the bus that took me from and to barcelona. i am camping at the beach very close to the airport. the last time i visited barcelona it was in a different mindset and more pleasure oriented. this time i looked at the city with different eyes.

the busy streets of the city center with the little second hand shops, the many skateboarders and the many sights marketed to tourists didn’t spark my photographic interest. it was the bus journey going from the periphery of barcelona towards the city center and the changing landscape that really caught my attention.

the first time i realized how satisfying it can be to take pictures from a moving train or in this case bus it can be was on a journey through the winter-landscape between berlin and karlsruhe in january of 2010. back then i used my rolleiflex and already anticipated the beautiful effect of blur caused by horizontal velocity.

objects closer to the lens move faster across the focusing screen than those further away. this causes the distant objects to be sharp and detailed whereas the closer objects blur and become distorted.

i used my phone pressed close to the bus window to avoid any reflections and just clicked everytime we passed by something interesting. the delay of the phonecamera required a lot of anticipation on my part. a very important trait of photography.

in barcelona i enjoyed some wonderful downtime, waiting for my „streets“ film to be developed by kitoli photo lab. tomorrow i will pick up my three rolls of snapshots out of my moving car and i am really excited to see how they turned out. then i am on my way to the pyrenees to take some landscape photography while hiking. an unusual subject for me and thus quite challenging and exciting.