"Cities are unable to express themselves, but we always try to give them a voice". Adam Zagajewski
Always with the same point of view, I’ve been collecting spaces from cities as Bilbao, Berlin, La Habana, Lisboa and others. A debtor point of view from the Canaletto’s “vedutes” (seventeenth century exquisite representations of the city in which architecture had a major role in paintings and prints), as also from the painters and photographers of the twentieth century that have used that point of view (from Edward Hopper to William Eggleston, Lee Friedlander, George Tice, Stephen Shore or Gabriele Basilico).
I do not care specially about spectacular or iconic buildings, nor even the most architecturally important ones, but the contrast of volumes, textures and meanings within a small habitat which is inside another bigger one, the city itself. It can be an intersection, a backyard or a mall; it’s when the urban elements are well organized when that place, however humble, makes visual sense and is better understood.
By using large files and processing the result in black and white, the volumes, textures and edges of the image grab all the attention, not the ads, flashy clothes or blue skies. Black and white also makes a screen that fades time.
Cars, people, lamps and cables are part of the city and have the same importance as buildings, at least in the abstract level of the image, but buildings are the main characters in my photographs, because they are the immutable History witnesses. They will always tell us the truth about a place.
Here in the city is where emerge the new things, everything is mixed without complex and all crazy ideas have their place. Specially when it comes to urban planning.
