Street photography: Portraying places.

I’m a portrait photographer and although it may seem it’s a contradiction with street photography, I think it makes sense.

It’s not about just taking a photograph of a street but portraying its essence, the life and light in it. I like to photograph people the way they are, beautiful but also human and perfectly imperfect. I think streets have an identity to show as well… the way light crosses the streets, the walls and ground, how streets welcome people and host them, how that street portrays and shows the identity of the city itself.

Of course people is very important for me, too. The way each person interacts with a place, the way one feels welcome and sheltered by it… it’s the feeling and the “use” we make of the street (maybe I feel this because I come from a place where we “live” the street… we enjoy it, we play in it when children and walk a lot when grown ups). For me the street is a place to “use” as well… and I need to feel something with that place, I need to feel we connect, I need to like its face and personality… it needs to be honest to me. I like to see it how it is “lived” and feel the stories it can tell.

Since a while ago I developed my love for windows (home windows) into a love for any type of window which lets me see what’s inside. It made me feel people was interacting with the street even when indoors. It’s funny… (I think I talked about this before) I love those countries which have bars and restaurants with so huge windows, people sit next to the window as if no one could see them… now I’m starting to see that in Barcelona but it was not that common till a while ago. That let me get further in my street photography and link a real connection and interaction between the street and the individual, because the street is not only a passing by path but also a landscape we choose to get lost in our minds, to disconnect, to have a coffee or… in some cases, that “stranger” we don’t notice but it is there observing and keeping our company. In the end we are part of the landscape, thus, we belong to the street.

It’s nothing else but a portrait… of a place but still a portrait, with its smiles and deep looks, with tears and raw “skin” texture, rough and daring, shy and simple, beautiful, real, lived and alive, big and cozy…