Capturing Passion at the 'Ciutat Flamenco Barcelona' Festival — Olé!

I’ve been carrying my camera through very varied stages in Barcelona and beyond for years now. Live music is my speciality, but I find myself increasingly drawn to dance and performing arts, and flamenco in particular gives me what I look for: enormous variety, force, expressiveness.

I often choose not to nail the shots in perfect focus, but rather to convey sensations of movement, energy and passion. I prefer working with film and low light to achieve special effects when the situation allows, though on large stages with many lights I run into technical limitations.

How it started

Everything began at Nau Bostik in October, when I photographed the presentation of Vanesa Aibar’s Cristalización IV as part of the Ciutat Flamenco festival. There I ran into programmer Lluís Cabrera, whom I had already met at the wonderful Flamenco de Barrio. With the organisation’s permission, I arranged to cover more festival performances.

All images were shot digitally, mainly with a 70-200mm lens and Canon 5D MkII or 6D cameras.

The performances

The festival spread its programme across various Barcelona venues from October 19 to 26. Each concert offered a different vision of contemporary flamenco: from movement research to revisited tradition, through interdisciplinary collaborations that make this festival a genuine space for experimentation.

Detailed photographic dispatches from each performance are on the Pocallum Blog.

Festival Ciutat Flamenco Barcelona

Detailed photographic dispatches from each performance are on the Pocallum Blog:

Discovering the pleasure of combining photography with written reflection on what happens on stage is one of the things that makes it worth being there.