Euro Trash Girl, pt. 1
For my recent trip to Europe (London/Spain/Lisbon), I revived my Olympus superzoom 70G film camera that my parents gave me for Christmas when I was 12. This was my first time purposefully using Kodak film and the results were pretty spectacular. Below are some themed groupings from my travels.
BUILDINGS & VIEWS
MOMENTS & DETAILS
SEMANA SANTA & THE BULLFIGHT
The week that I chose to be in Spain just happened to be Semana Santa (Holy Week), which is a huge deal for the majorly Catholic country of Spain. The cities that I visited are particularly known for their traditions of daily processions during Holy Week. It’s an experience that is difficult to document in images alone, since the energy of the crowd and the music from the marching bands add so much to the visceral experience. In Malaga (the birthplace of Picasso), the week ends with a bullfight where matadors wear outfits painted with Picasso motifs.
I saw a lot of similarities between these traditional Spanish events, which added a lot of context and understanding of Spanish culture and history for me. Unlike sporting events in the U.S., the bullfight is a spiritually charged experience, much like the religious processions that happen throughout the week. When the matador communes with the bull, hypnotizing it with his red cape before dealing the final blow that will end its life- the crowd goes silent in contemplative reverence. Similarly, during the Semana Santa processions when one of the many floats depicting often brutal scenes of Jesus from the stations of the cross passes, the crowd falls silent and will shush each other if others do not follow suit.
