Very carefully! Ha - I had to say it.

I can't claim to know the history of the Barcelona 'castellers' (castle-ers), but it's a Catalan tradition. I took those photos during the Merce festival in '99. In fact, most of the photos you saw were, according to the paper the next day and this web site ( http://www.castellersdebarcelona.org ), "Una fita històrica" (an historical feat). The biggest ever! The cool thing was, it was my birthday, and I didn't have any idea what to expect. If you are in Spain in late September, don't miss this really unique Catalan festival.

[This message has been edited by MadridMan (edited 01-24-2001).]

A very good friend in Madrid, Rafael sent me these two photos today:

1) Rafael's friend Ivan at the famed El Brillante , next to plates of patatas bravas, bocadillo de calamares, AND San Miguel beer.

2) Close up of the plates/beer .

Now was that cruel of him to send me these or what?? Hahhaa... Taken earlier today, I can almost smell.....Mmmm......

Saludos, MadridMan

Cool new website!! Skyscrapers.com > Madrid shows photos & information about/of/from (nearly) all the tall buildings in Madrid, Spain!

HERE'S their listing of all other major cities in Spain.

Have a great weekend, all! Saludos, MadridMan (P.S. Guess who's coming for the weekend! Woo Hoo!!)

mmmm, that calamari looks gooooooddddd!!

MM, have a great weekend! Perhaps you'll have something draped over the camera this weekend!?
Jen

WOW!! I just found personal photo & description pages about Madrid (and also of Spain) on the Virtual Tourist website. LOTS of GREAT tourist photos there with descriptions. I love to enjoy these kinds of sites during my lunch hour at work. Have a nice weekend everyone!!

Saludos, MadridMan

The photos of Spain that remain indelibly in my mind are those of Eugene Smith. His powerful "Story of a Spanish Village" which ran in LIFE Magazine around 1952 are, to me the photos of Spain by which most others are to be compared and evaluated. And all in black and white.

If you are not familiar with this photo essay by one of the great photojournalists of the last century, look it up. You will gain a new appreciation of documentary photography as art.
Cantabene

Cantabene

Where can I get to see this photo-essay? Was it only published in LIFE? Is it available anywhere else?

I would like to get hold of it for my Dad, who as a 19 year old in 1947 took himself from England to Spain and walked through the mountains, from Barcelona to San Sebastian, much to the astonishment of some people, both at home in England and also the people he met in Spain. He encountered some interesting events and was arrested a couple of times too for looking suspicious.

I'm sure he would find it very interesting.

Thanks for any pointers you can give me.

Thanks.

Jo-Anne

Joanne:
I last saw these original photos a few years ago at an exhibit of Smith's work at the Philadelhia Museum of Art in a traveling exhibition. At that time I purchased a book that reproduced all the photos in the show. I imagine it might still be available from the Philadelphia Museum. But you may find it a bit pricey, and not need all the other Smith work shown in it. Although it is a stunning collection of the work of this extraordinary photojournalist and my favorite photographer.

Smith represents, in my view, the highest level of black and white photojournalism, which IMHO, is to show the human condition in a uniquely photographic way.

The book was published by Aperture, a divison of the Silver Mountain Foundation. The address they show in the book is 20 East 23rd St. New York City.

Perhaps Aperture has reproductions of Smith's Spanish Village essay in other publications. Good luck.

There is another book, published in 1960, by a Philadelphia photographer named Joe Nettis called "A Spanish Summer." It's full of well printed, pretty good B&W photos of Spain, with a lot of views of people and places around San Sebastion and Santiago de Compostela. What makes it especially interesting is that it's a look at Spain in the late 50s--quite diffferent from the Spain of today. It's long out of print but can be obtained through used book sources on the web.

Nettis is not a Smith, but he is competent, thorough, and brings his own honesty to his subject.

Perhaps your Dad might relate to this better than the work of Smith, who invested about six months learning about the people of the small village he photographed. The Smith work is intensely personal and emotionally charged, but timeless.
Cantabene

[This message has been edited by cantabene (edited 02-28-2001).]

[This message has been edited by cantabene (edited 02-28-2001).]

I JUST found the coolest satelite photos of dear, old Madrid. Notice Barajas runways in the upper righthand corner. This is a BIG photo at about 855kb and took me several minutes to download/view with my pokey dialup connection (31Kbps). It's very colorful and very clear and shows the ENTIRE city and far outside the furthest outerbelt. See if you can find the Retiro Park. Once you find that you can find all the other places we all know so well. You'll find that photo on the NASA site HERE and a smaller, thumbnail image at 39K HERE .

By the way, I found this and hundreds others through the NEW Beta site of images in Google.com @ http://images.google.com/ . I just typed in MADRID and got them! Try it yourself!

[ 07-07-2001: Message edited by: MadridMan ]

If you look really closely, you can see Atlético de Madrid getting scored on by their 2ª division foe...