streetphotography

esperando el sol

Image | | andy townend

So I took my guitar
And I threw down some chords
And some words I could sing without shame

And I soon had a song
I played it around
For some friends but they all said the same

They said music’s for fools
You should go back to school
The future is prisons and math

So I did what they said
Now my children are fed
‘Cause they pay me to do what I’m asked

I forgot all my songs
The words now are wrong
And I burned my guitar in a rage

But the fire came to rest
In your white velvet breast
So somehow I just know that it’s safe

Lyrics by Low, Death of a Salesman

*images made with love with Nikon D850, Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8E VR*

dante

Image | | andy townend

‘..through me you go into a city of weeping
through me you go into eternal pain
through me you go amongst the lost people’
― dante alighieri, the inferno

The images which follow were made in, of all places, a convent.

The ‘Convento de las Duenas’, tucked away in a quiet corner of Salamanca.

One can only imagine what passed through the minds, and souls, of those who walked these cloisters, once upon a time.

A different world.

Or is it?

Perhaps not so much.

*all images made with fujifilm x100f with fixed 23mm (35mm full frame equivalent) lens, tweaked in lightroom cc with fujifilm acros filter added in post*

Unfinished business

Image | | andy townend

“The bulls are my best friends.”
I translated to Brett.
“You kill your friends?” she asked.
“Always,” he said in English, and laughed. “So they don’t kill me.”
― Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises

Graffiti emblazoned remains of a disused bull-fighting arena nestle uncomfortably behind bars amidst an affluent ‘urbanización’. Eerie silence shrouds the abandoned amphitheatre. Distant echoes linger amidst the litter strewn pens. Serried rows of cold concrete stand in witness to battle and blood.

A stone’s throw away children laugh in a newly completed park. Football pitches and gym equipment laid out amidst newly planted trees serve a different purpose to this stone enclosed ring.

Unfinished business.

Images made with Fujifilm X100F with fixed 23mm (35mm FF equivalent) and processed in Lightroom and Analog Efex Pro 2.

la españa vacía

Image | | andy townend

only the sunset knows my blind desire for the fleeting
only the moon understands the beauty of love
when held by a hand like the aura of nostalgia

– Nostalgia, Emily Barker and The Red Clay Halo

Inspirado en parte por la españa vacía, el libro escrito por sergio del molino

cerrada

mordaz

vacía

retorcido

camino

bloqueado

ironía

mordido

presionado

acerbo

después

abatimiento

refugio

desolado

centinela

*imágenes realizadas con olympus om10, objetivo de 135mm f/3.5, película de blanco y negro de ilford, sin editar*

farewell wordpress wpc

Image | | andy townend

Like many people, I suspect, I am saddened to see the unannounced demise of the WordPress weekly photo challenge. In the early days of salamancastreets the weekly prompts from the WordPress team often offered a much needed spur to action, created a platform and built a community.

The WordPress team, and their occasional guests, created a cherished sense of community. They will be missed.

How to choose a favourite? Not exactly Sophie’s Choice I know, but hey guys, you may be ripping out the soul from your blogging platform. Why not at least have issued some kind of warning, canvassed opinion, or even sought out those willing to carry the torch?

So, I publish again my very first photo for this esteemed challenge.

See also my posts on belgradestreets, andytownend and belgianstreets……

lloviendo

Image | | andy townend

i woke to the sound of rain
― sylvia plath, the bell jar

see me

the face

in the rain

see me

the fingers

on the pane

see me

before

i am

wiped

away

*one of a series of shots made in salamanca with my ancient olympus om10, with zuiko 50mm f/1.8 lens, and loaded with ilford xp2 super ISO 400 film*

plaza

Image | | andy townend

“Look at the rain long enough, with no thoughts in your head, and you gradually feel your body falling loose, shaking free of the world of reality. Rain has the power to hypnotize.”
― Haruki Murakami, South of the Border, West of the Sun

We often spend time wondering who, where, or perhaps what we are.

What we’d rather be.

Maybe, our lives would be better if we simply accepted who we are, where we are.

And what we have.

Let the rain wash over us, cleanse us.

Make us whole again.

And maybe then, we’d rather not need to be anything that we are not.

Already.

A thoughtful piece for this week’s WordPress Weekly Photo challenge which posed the rhetorical question ‘I’d rather be’

And, in an odd way, the fact that each of these shots was captured, in Salamanca’s Plaza Mayor, with a 35 year old Olympus OM 10 with a battered Zuiko 50mm f/1.8 lens and a fresh roll of Ilford XP2 Super ISO400, and posted here edit free, says something about where I’d rather be too.

Perhaps.