Barcelona Photo Blog

Square Format, Old-School Soul This wasn’t the shot the magazine wanted—it was mine. A stubborn nod to my medium format film days, framed tight in a square, because some subjects demand symmetry. The camera’s flexibility let me play with ratios, but my heart belongs to the square. It’s the photographic equivalent of a sonnet: constrained,…

Illustration, Rooftops, and the Ghosts of Dead Pigeons Photographing Pau Estrada, a Barcelona-based illustrator, was one of those shoots where everything almost goes according to plan — except for the part where the magazine adds a weird pink overlay. But I’ve learned not to stress over editorial design choices. As long as I have an…

Sunlight, Wind, and Wild Beauty Near Barcelona Barcelona’s airport isn’t exactly where you’d expect to find a peaceful stretch of protected wetland—but just beyond the runway, the El Remolar-Filipines nature reserve offers a surprising escape. On a crisp, windy day, I headed out there with a journalist and the editor from Metropolitan Magazine. The wind…

A Forgotten Photo That Opened New Doors Sometimes an image you barely remember ends up doing all the legwork. I recently got contacted about a project in Geneva by Elena from Brain Bazaar. She referenced a portrait of boat builder Mark Redden — one I’d completely forgotten I’d taken. The memory clicked later when I…

Getting the Shot from a Step Ladder When it comes to these interview portraits, the challenge is always the same—leave enough dead space for layout while still making something visually interesting. For Emma Reynolds, a theatre director working with children’s educational plays, I had the benefit of a step ladder and a well-lit studio. That…

The Artist with a Business Plan Christian Schallert is an Austrian photographer who’s turned a knack for visual culture into a sustainable business—selling postcards, prints, and T-shirts featuring his own work. Proof that in the creative world, having a business brain often trumps simply having good ideas. He’s a savvy operator and a genuinely friendly…

Fast Portraits at the Fairground Heidi Tsai was the third subject I photographed for the integration series. A classical musician married to a Catalan and living outside the city, she agreed to do the shoot while on a family day out at a funfair on Montjuïc. Not your usual portrait setting, but sometimes the best…

Finding Japan in a Catalan Campus Although Joaquin Beltran isn’t Asian himself, he’s a professor of Asian Studies at a university on the outskirts of Barcelona. The campus isn’t the most picturesque place, but I’ve always enjoyed shooting modern architecture—it gives you cleaner shapes and more dramatic shadow play than you’d ever get from older,…