Love in Barcelona and Beyond

Couple kissing each other - Las Ramblas - Barcelona

Love is all around us, it is always there, it will never ask you when to come, it is in the air, on those leaves, on the bark of that tree, in the way the time freezes around this warm embrace. This is such a universal scene, it has been so many times portrayed!!!

When I take a picture of a couple sometimes I feel I am violating something sacred so I tried to conceal the faces. Who they are, is irrelevant. It should be. Love can happen to you, can happen to me. The way I see it, is that this is something so deep that I could write a book about it. I would only say, that for me, love is like washing away the rest of the scene. I am sure that Las Ramblas, this extremely busy street, disappeared for an instant around this kiss, passersby became but silent blurry ghosts, signs got distorted, and a sudden secret swirl of energy started to form around the lovers, that mysterious matter, that causes numbness inside our brains, that gives you a lump in your throat, pushes your stomach against your bones, right beneath your diaphragm, dilates your pupils, accelerates your pulse, sends shivers down your spine, opens up your pores, boosts up your senses up to the point you fall into a trance and you are no longer there, but somewhere inside the soul, not just your soul, but some other person's soul and that my friends, is the real magic of it all, to walk into somebody's beautiful soul, unexplored, full of treasures, full of light, richer than yours sometimes, because yours you apparently know already, which of course, is not completely true. But you don't want yours, you want to walk along this new path, to enhance your experience, expand your senses to the world beyond and the only tool you've got is something right behind your eyes connected to something in your chest that is capable of seeing without using your vision and transforming reality into whatever whimsical image you could think of. To be more precise, you are not precisely thinking. I am sure this comes from a place inside our hearts.

Lovers' hearts are prepared to catch the weakest universal signals and fine tune them into a perfect symphony without having super powers, without knowing about music or instruments, they are simply connected to the source and the source is not outside, it comes from within.

Let's respect the peace of this moment, this private kiss, let's envy in a way, the ones who are able to know love, real love and wish we can find it some day, in this life or in any other life.

Have you ever felt this way? How would you describe love?

Under The Arc de Triomf

Sometimes we cross through gates unknowingly because the door is totally irrelevant but going under the Arch of Triumph (Arc de Triomf in Catalan) is an odd experience. It is silly to feel a certain thrill just by walking under a bunch of bricks but there must be some kind of inner chip that senses history when approaching a monument, that makes us pretend we are a Roman soldier entering the city while fellow citizens wear laurel wreaths on their heads and make the victory sign with their fingers. Well, you know what I mean, you don't remain indifferent while approaching a majestic building like this and you get carried away. In the early morning sun silhouettes of passers-by are drawn mysteriously into another dimension, into the gates of history.

A Mexican Hat, Black and White and Musings About the Past

In the streets the most absurd, the most trivial situation may be frozen up and become a scene in your imagination and eventually end up more or less fortunately imprinted forever on a photograph. Some of those scenes acquire more meaning or are better off in black and white or sepia. I don't know why is that so. Have you ever wondered why the lack of other colors turns a photograph into something more artistic, more symbolic, more serious perhaps? And wondering about that, why is it that after ten or twenty years, that significance grows exponentially. For example, I am somehow sure that this modest snapshot of a random guy showing off his brand new Mexican hat along the Rambla de Mar bridge near Maremagnum center, looks better in black and white but I am convinced that twenty years from now (not that it is meant to turn into a famous picture) this trifle, brief moment in time, will evolve into something more artistic, into a sort of message from the past, talking about other times, other people at least to me and my family. It is evident that black and white gives value to images because in our imagination we associate faded, blurry, noisy, black and white images with the past. And curiously enough, although recent generations have been surrounded by color photographs there is something there in the back of our minds that makes the association persist. Maybe it is something about chromatism, dreams, the subconscious mind...who knows. Here is a link to a previous version of someone else wearing a Mexican hat but this time in color: Mexican Hats in Barcelona.

Picture Location on Google Map

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Barcelona Drummer: African Beat

We are going to park the bikes for a while cause this is not a motor site. Not that today's picture shows precisely anything about Barcelona but you know I am prone to changing topics easily. In fact, to make it a drastic change, I shifted color for BW. Portraits are not my speciality but I like the way the face insinuates the hands' drumming. For the other part of this photo check my previous link: African Drummer in Barcelona.

La Pedrera or Casa Mila by Gaudi at Paseo de Gracia, Barcelona

Today I will go to bed quite late but it has been worth the time spent on posting this photograph. It has its flaws but I like the stormy look and the contour of this building:  Casa Mila also known as La Pedrera one of the best works by Gaudi located at Paseo de Gracia. 

You can see some people up there admiring the strange chimneys or turrets that are scattered all over the roof. 

Have a nice weekend.