It really is a beautiful city.
And September is a beautiful month to be here.
Back to my project !
I’ve been spending my mornings going through the pictures on the computer.
Checking stuff for technical issues first – because of the lighting levels the first job is to chuck out the ones that are blurred: camera shake, subject movement or simply out of focus. (I’m using the 70-200 mm almost all the time and I find that I have a depth of field of only a couple of inches and when your subject is moving fast this is not a lot !)
Yesterday I encountered some more ladies in the street.
No, not like that !
Dancers, who have set up a little “tablau” on the pavement: an iPod and an amplifier,plus a small wooden board (on which they can stamp their feet)
Their enthusiasm for the art is quite captivating.
This time it was Nora and Cristi, sisters, although they didn’t look it.
They seemed a little surprised when I approached them to take pictures as all the tourists were doing just that. I explained (in my excruciating Spanish) that I would send on some images to them if they gave me email addresses. They looked a little suspicious at this wizened old bastard but agreed.
I’m not sufficiently knowledgeable to say whether their dancing was good or not but
once again their enthusiasm won me over.
My main appointment yesterday was to see Estrella Morente:
(Estrella Morente is a Spanish flamenco singer. She was born on August 14, 1980 in Las Gabias, Granada in southern Spain. She is the daughter of flamenco singer Enrique Morente and dancer Aurora Carbonell.)
Not only is she one of Spain’s favourite “cantadores”, she’s a bit of a “looker” too. (I don’t know how much this has to do with her popularity.
Many of the singers are wizened old ladies, upon whose faces you can read the pains and the joys that have brought them to singing passionate lyrics. Not so Estrella, though she sings of love and death, her clear face doesn’t bear the marks of personal grief.
I think I may be in love … again !
Later I was due at the Teatro Central for an evening spectacular.
Wasn’t really sure what this was going to be like.
This was a “show” in the classical meaning. Singing dancing clapping and cheering.
Sunday Night at the London Palladium sort of thing.
So did my daily trudge across the river to Triana and up to the ugly theatre by the waterside.
Inside however, although it has no architectural pretensions, it does have a better lighting rig,
and for us photographers that is a Good Thing !
Levels were not appreciably brighter but at least you didn’t have those ugly dark pools in the eye sockets of the artists, caused by having all the lights set so high in the auditorium.
Many is the time I have had to wait for an artist to raise their eye-line to the ceiling so I can see into their faces.
Well this definitely was a “show”
Lots going on. The scene was supposed to re-create a Spanish feria in a village.
All the dancing was “jolly” – Sevillanas I think is the technical term for it and frowned upon by flamenco aficionados – many insist it is not flamenco at all.
But it was an enjoyable swirl of colour and music.
Everyone entered into the production with bags of enthusiasm
(you will notice that I am using the word “enthusiasm” an awful lot – and not by accident. Enthusiasm is a defining thing I have noticed about every performance of flamenco I have ever seen. They all enter into the spirit of the thing and just go for it.)
Unlike the other photographers working for Spanish papers etc. I was not there to illustrate the show; I wanted closer pix, focussing on individual artists and what they are bringing to the dance. This time my colleagues were five rows back shooting on standard lenses whilst I was down alone in “the pit” with my 200mm. (later I snuck away through a little door I had found into the wings of the stage and hid myself in a lighting rig. Wish I’d done it before as it was a much more personal view. I did get chucked out though by an official who said (I think) that I was risking life and limb amongst the cables and lamps. Wanted to tell him that I used to work for the BBC and know all there is to know about Health and Safety !)
So here are some pictures .
