Barcelona - Day Three

Today I headed to Park Guell to see some of the magnificent mosaic work there. I hadn't thought that the curved mosaic seats would be anywhere near as big as they were and likewise I thought the lizard would be huge and he's very small. Funny how photos never quite prepare you for the real thing.

I shopped at a market, took three busses and the metro a few times and walked around 10 miles in all. I am so bummed to be leaving here tomorrow. The hotel Casa Camper is fantastic, the city is both quirky and colourful and I've loved it more than I had expected. It's also a city brimming with things to do and I could have spent a week or more quite easily.

Tomorrow it is back to London and on to Cardiff to Dr Who and Torchwood territory - look out for photos from Cardiff Bay and the Millenium Center.

Here is the link to today's photos.

Barcelona - Day Two

Taking a bit of a break from Gaudi architecture (not a total break, just a bit of one), I headed to the older parts of Barcelona today to walk and enjoy the activity on the streets. Today's images are an eccletic bunch - more graffiti, statues, houses and stuff that took my fancy.

Click here to see them.

Barcelona - Day One

Today is my first day in Barcelona and I've have had my jaw dropped all day today. I imagined the buildings here would be wonderful but they exceeded even my estimation.

In the interests of showing a lot of photos and not bogging down the blog I have created a slideshow and linked them here.

Since I've got the system up and running, I'm hoping this will make slideshows easier to create in future - thanks Lightroom for making this a fairly transparent exercise.

Tell a story

If you think back to English composition lessons at school, your teacher, like mine would have told you that a story needs a beginning, a middle and an end. Photographing an event is like telling a story except that, instead of telling it in writing, you're telling it in pictures. Like a story, your photo story needs a beginning, a middle and an end.

All too often, our photography captures the middle or end of the story and the rest isn't photographed. If you make sure to set the scene with your photos, you'll have everything you need to scrap an entire event.

So, when you next head out with a picnic basket in hand for an afternoon by the river, start photographing before you leave home. There are stories to be told of little Hannah who always looses her shoes, Mum making piles of sandwiches, teenager Tim who wants to take his new computer game with him, and lots of other typical family behaviours to record. When you're at the picnic spot, take a photo of your favourite place by the river and the lunchtime spread before everyone tucks in. Later on, photograph what remains when they're done and dad as he snores the afternoon away under a tree.

Finally, photograph everyone jammed into the car ready to head home and the mess of gear piled up in the front entry waiting to be returned to its place in the house when you've unpacked.

An unexpected story


These photos tell the story of Casey's funny hairdo from beginning to end and the effect she had on bystanders.

In the photos above, Casey created her funny hairdo as we sat waiting for a graduation that was late starting. The photos have nothing to do with the event itself but it is a few minutes of laughter that none of us who were there will ever forget! The story unfolds in the photos – they show not only the hairdo she created but the action leading up to it and the reaction of those sitting close by when they saw it.

When you focus on capturing an entire story rather than just individual shots you will find you have fresh adventures to capture with your camera.