Spring is coming: Gerbera Daisies

Spring is coming. On TV they said it was 20ºC in the South yesterday and almond trees are in blossom in Lleida, Catalonia. Maybe the weather in Spain won't be that warm till next month but at least days are longer. The happiest and most invigorating time of the year is around the corner in this part of the world. By the way, it's not the first time I show Gerbera daisies in Barcelona Photoblog. What can I do if they are so common in our gardens. I offer them to honor the upcoming March equinox. Welcome Spring!

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Of Why Flowers Are So Farking Beautiful

Have you stopped to think why flowers are so attractive, so appealing to the human eye?.

There is much more symbolism in holding a flower in your hand, even the most modest daisy, than just a blade of grass or a branch. Maybe an olive or a laurel branch could have some, but there are certainly a lot of unconscious or subconscious concepts, images, dreams, memories triggered in our mind by the mere contemplation of some beautiful flowers. Notice that I don't mean just the effect of colors but also the influence of shape and textures.

Take this bouquet I found at Las Ramblas. It is exuberant, isn't it? In what sense? I changed the colors on purpose just to see the effects playing with different channels in Photoshop. The flowers kept looking beautiful in all of them. Maybe it is just the light falling on those petals or the voluptuosity of the turgent bulbs that remind you of lips? I don't know. I finally decided to keep a touch of color but with a burnt sienna layer on top that makes it look like a canvas and much more artistic perhaps.

The hypnotic effect is still there though and I can't explain why. Can you?

Want to learn more about flowers and gardening, check Lamour et Fleurs

Carnival Costumes

Carnival costumes may have the most unusual designs. This isn't by far one of my best captures. The background was horrible and I was using the built-in flash but I noticed that still this ghostly image can have some weird, spooky Indian halo around it.

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Flashy Wall Mural, Barcelona

This is some flashy wall mural I found in the Raval area. I don't know exactly what it means although it talks about the power of images and words. The casc antic area (old town) is full of them.

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Carnival 2009 in Barcelona is Coming!

Next Saturday a big parade will take place in Barcelona to celebrate our Carnival. Not so famous but getting better all the time. As you can imagine I have no recent pictures but I thought this pirate character might do the trick just to start getting in the mood. There are many sites online anticipating carnestoltes but this is the official site: Carnaval. Hmm, I hope they update the site soon.

Arc de Triomf: A Landmark of Barcelona

Barcelona's Arc de Triomf monument was built on the Ciutadella park during one of the most important events in the history of our city: the first Universal Exhibition of 1888. This triumphant arch which the Romans used to build to receive and honor victorious armies after their numerous invasions, was designed by architect Josep Vilaseca to act as the entrance to the Sant Joan Hall on the exhibition area. It is inevitable to think of other famous arches like the one in Paris. This one is not a world reference but it is one of our symbolic buildings and is tightly linked to our history. At the top of the beautiful brick monument we find several friezes, the one on the main façade, overlooking Paseo San Juan, containing the "Barcelona welcomes the nations" sculpture by Joseph Reynés, another on the rear façade with a sculpture called "Reward" by Joseph Lemon representing the delivery of awards to participants in the exhibition and finally the friezes on the sides with allegories of Agriculture, Industry and Trades. Previous posts: Triumph Arch or Arc de Triomphe and Arc de Triomph Detail.

Sant Pau Hospital: Cupolas

Can you imagine a hospital with buildings like this?

Think of a central square with colorful flowers and bloomed orange trees surrounded by brick wall pavilions crowned with beautiful Art Nouveau cupolas and literally covered with sculptures and assorted architectural adornments. That is not a dream, it exists. You only have to visit Sant Pau Hospital (Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau).

Maybe you would say: "No way, I don't like hospitals". Well, the pavilions are not functional anymore so they will not admit you as a patient. Just enter through the main gate on Cartagena street, one block away from L5 blue subway line. You can sit on a bench there, take a lot of wonderful pictures and most of all, enjoy the peaceful atmosphere of the place. When you leave you won't have the feeling you visited a hospital but the certainty that you have been in contact with a beautiful past.

Hammered Dulcimer Player on Portal del Angel, Barcelona

I am no music expert but after some research I would say this is a modest variant of a hammered dulcimer or psaltery (salterio in Spanish). There is some confusion about the terms dulcimer and psaltery whether the strings are plucked or hammered but experts say both words have been used indistinctly through history. As you can guess this is a very old instrument. It appeared in Persia about 2000 years ago and our modern piano evolved from this peculiar wooden box. This woman was in the middle of Portal del Angel flooding the place with sweet melodies that evoked ancient times. If you want to feel the same take a look at this marvelous video: Mermaid Medieval Hammered Dulcimer.

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Modernist Gate at Els Quatre Gats Tavern, Carrer Montsio 3 bis, Barcelona

You wonder sometimes what Catalan Art Nouveau artists had in mind when they let go their imagination till their artwork almost reached the level of absurdity often sacrificing functionality for the sake of beauty. Take the case of the ironwork on this modernist gate.

Obviously you could easily jump over the gate, I don't think anyone would get hurt with those "sharp" pod-like points but aren't they cute!.

You can find this gate at Montsió street near Portal de l'Angel, specifically at the modernista Casa Marti and tavern Els Quatre Gats which opened in 1897

The wrought ironwork belongs to artist Manuel Ballarín i Lancuentra

Check the history of Els Quatre Gats, to have a better idea of this must-see place located in one of those small streets you would probably not see on a quick visit.

Spanish Traditional Dance: The Jota

One of the best known traditional dances in Spain is what is known as La Jota (the same name as letter J).

It probably originated in the region of Aragon although there are different forms in other regions like Valencia, Castile, Navarra, etc. Dancers move in this peculiar way elevating their legs as if they were doing some kind of fouetté combined with waltz like movements. In the meantime, they play the castanets with arched elevated arms.

Other members in the company sing popular songs and play typical string instruments like the bandurria. This is a very simple explanation but I guess you get the idea. I published some posts not long ago about jotas:

Baturricos Playing Bandurrias
Three Jota Singers from Aragon
Jota Dancer

Modernist Lamp Ironwork: Imaginative Design

Near Sagrada Familia and all along Avinguda Gaudi you come across beautiful modernist lamps like the one in this picture. Well this is only a detail of the wonderful design of the ironwork. Check the modernist lamp at Gaudi Avenue on my Google Maps. Finding here in full view in this other post:

Lamp post by Falques, Avinguda Gaudi, Barcelona

Look at this other beautiful street lamp near Arc de Triomf by Pere Falques.

Catalan Traditional Dress and Pubillas

A Catalan woman wearing the traditional dress. You should know that there are some differences between the traditional garment and a pubilla's dress. But what is a pubilla? 

Long ago, Catalan families with no male descendants considered the first daughter as the heiress in the family. In case there were more sisters, she kept three fourths of the family's patrimony. So an heiress is called pubilla and the male counterpart is called hereu. Pubillas helped preserved the family's last name in case of not having a male descendant. 

At present the pubilla tradition is kept in Catalan towns just for cultural purposes. Some towns elect their pubilla among young ladies (pubilla derives from puberty) who are to act as representatives of Catalonia's culture. Pubillas can only be elected once and during one single year to yield the position to other ladies. Both pubillas and hereus are accompanied by maids of honor and fadrins (brothers that are not heirs) respectively. 

I am not an expert on this matter but I would say this is just a traditional dress, age factors aside. A pubillas's dress is made of a more expensive fabric and shawls are made of a more elaborate lace. They wear shoes and not espadrilles although both the traditional and the pubilla's way of dressing include the elbow length fishnet gloves and the hair net.

I find it fascinating to learn about these old traditions from Catalonia that if it weren't for the perseverance of its people would be lost long time ago.

Green Sugary Candy

Sweets not only taste great but also produce beauty with their colors and evoke dreams in our deep rooted childhood memories. What if their colors were dull, would they sell just the same? Or is it a matter of stimuli? Are bright colors nice in our minds because they usually taste good? Are they associated with happiness, anniversaries, the colors of our room when we were kids, clowns? I don't know but I do prefer them that way! Don't you?

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Keep on Turning Oh My Rusty, Rusty Wheel!

Don't worry, it ain't no song or poem. Did I tell you I love rust and decay...in photography!!! Not that I have many pictures like this. Well I remember an old propeller. When you search for stuff carrying a good coat of rust you may come across the wildest remnants of old machinery, tools or scrap metal. Sometimes you may need to visit some abandoned warehouse or a junkyard in the outskirts but this curious wheel part of what I suppose was some kind of winch to load carts I found in a town near Barcelona.

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Musing in Las Ramblas de Barcelona

Before I begin I would like to thank a couple of friends for making me muse on my blog and the daily posting affair. They both did in two very different ways which I won't explain here but made me think that daily doesn't mean having to post each and every day of the year but to do it several times a week perhaps. These are their sites: San Francisco Daily Photo by Manuel Guerzoni and Hyde Daily Photo by Gerald England. I am glad they made me came out of my stubborn obsession and in way released me from this sacrifice. I think this will mean better posts as I will have more energy and less ambiguity as to the date on my posts considering I am one month behind schedule and the blog is talking about January 2009 as of now. So I stood like this man leaning on the railing of some parking lot in Las Ramblas and began musing for a while about the future. In fact it only took me an hour to change my mind. Thanks again my friends.

Toy Souvenirs, Las Ramblas, Barcelona

Well, the new domain and the updating of backlinks via emails to webmasters is keeping me busy lately. All the old internal links have been automatically reconfigured and the ones on the search engines are leading to www.barcelonaphotoblog.com. It has been hard but I feel much better now. Any help passing on the change of address message is deeply appreciated. Oh yeah, today's image, I almost forgot:

It is a small toy, a souvenir you can buy at stalls in Las Ramblas. I published a very similar image in the past. Here is the old post: Wooden Toys at Las Ramblas Stall

Old Man With Walking Stick

I always remember these lines: "life is very short and there's no time for fussing and fighting my friend".

The time will come when we will grow old enough to look back and think of the things we did right or wrong or simply didn't do. Then we will regret many things, that's for sure and we will feel nostalgic about our past and the people we left behind and weren't lucky enough.

Do you know how long will it take to get there?, just a snap of your fingers. Or some milliseconds compared to the history of mankind.

Do you know how many people have faced the same experience, when you get to the end of the line? Many of them are there in our books of history, in our collective mind, just an image in our database, many more not even were worthy of being stored.

They were here and were like you and me and they felt the same and looked into their past just as we do now and their visit to this land was brief too.

How much time did they or will we spend fussing and fighting before it's too late?

Antiques Market, Barcelona: Virgin

This is a small antiques market that is temporarily set along Portal del Angel street, near El Corte Inglés building. Although there are bigger and more interesting markets selling these articles in Barcelona, some of the objects caught my attention during a recent walk. Remember I showed you a vintage phone, well now you can admire this beautiful image of the virgin whose facial traits and garments evidence the skill and creative talent of the original artist.

The Lady in the Hat: Barcelona Photoblog and Some Important News!

Please, change your link to my page (if any) to www.barcelonaphotoblog.com

I know many of you have gone through this before if you are in the blogspot domain. Some others don't. I finally decided to register my new domain and am redirecting everyone that lands on this page towards the new address. If you are here you don't notice any difference of course cause you have been redirected already but for me and the good indexing of this site it is important that you "waste" just a minute of your time and change the old barcelonaphotoblog.blogspot.com to www.barcelonaphotoblog.com

Thanks! I chose the Lady in the Hat here on the metallic window of a cosmetics shop for two reasons: to use a flashy image to call your attention on the change of links and to emphasize that this blog is NOT closed as this shop. It is as happy, as healthy and seductive as the lady in that painting or graffiti.

I want to thank all those who keep coming and I apologize for my not coming here that often lately. I was busy and musing about this domain thing. It is not easy, you see.

If anyone wants to know how to do it I might be of help. What is going to happen with rank, that, I will soon find out but I will do my best so Barcelona Photoblog keeps looking good and has better exposure on the web. Once again, thank you.

Sant Pau Hospital's Gates: Modernist Ironwork

This is a detail of one of the angels and the holy cross on top of Hospital de Sant Pau main gates. I enhanced the rusty surface of the ironwork which was already bathed in the last rays of the afternoon sun. Check this old post where there is another snap of the holy cross.

Now we are going to open the gates of your visit to one of the most renowned works of Domenech i Montaner and a magnificent representative of Catalan Modernisme.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the modernista complex of Sant Pau.

Here is the:

Top List of Things to Learn about Modernism and Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau

• Tiled Cupola at Modernista complex in Hospital de Sant Pau
• Modernist Wall adornment
• Sant Jordi Killing the Dragon - mosaic
• Gargoyles
• Modernisme in Hospital de Sant Pau, Barcelona
• Clock Tower
• Cross and Pavilion
• Modernist Ceiling
• Modernista Turret
• Ceiling at Hospital de Sant Pau
• Archangel Sculpture by Eusebi Arnau
• A touch of Fresh Air in Architecture
• Musings on Religion with Mosaic in Hospital de Sant Pau
• Dome Casa de Convalescencia
• Stained Glass Window at Casa de Convalescencia
• Modernist Stained Glass in Casa de Convalescencia Dome