Best Photography 2024 so far (part 2)

This post is a continuation of the previous one: Best Photography 2024 so far (part 1).

In this blog I’ll be reviewing some of the best photos I’ve taken during the first 6 months of the year. This collection of photographs follows absolutely no particular order nor any specific perspective other than me liking them or a given image having a special meaning to me. That being said, I’ll add that this is not a review from a heavily technical point of view, since I am not a camera settings freak at all. For me, the camera (and its settings) is just a tool to get my job done. I know what I want the camera to do, what my ideal photo needs in order to be exposed the way I want and so I set the camera accordingly to get it, nothing more.

The first photo of this second block is going to be this scene from my beautiful hometown Barcelona.

We were there in April and stayed for a week and the weather was not at all what you have in mind when thinking about Barcelona or Spain for that matter. Most of the time it rained and I didn’t get most of the photos I planned to get of the city and its vibrancy. But… I still took a few photos worth mentioning.
I like this photo because you have a lot of information, a lot is going on. Some chairs from a café in front of the sea, the trees, the lamp posts… and then finally the silhouettes of three men running under the rain at the exact same distance from one another. At the time I thought it was a pretty good street photography and I still think the same today.

Next photo again from Barcelona and from the exact same location, only looking for a different scene. More subject-centered. And I have to say that I was very lucky.

The rain started suddenly, and some of the people that were on the beach were escaping, looking for shelter. Some of them were riding bikes and that was what piqued my interest. I love photographing bycicles, and here I had many bycicles going crazy in different directions and fast.
So, I did my best to compose my scene because I had only the 85mm lens on me, a little too tight for the job, but it resulted in a photo where I got to capture 2 people going in different directions, one in the foreground, one in the background and both headless. AND, everything done in camera. I didn’t have to crop this one to make them headless. If I had to repeat this one, I would be in real trouble.

I love capturing people’s feelings on camera. It is not the main driver in my photography but when I capture something like this, I cherish it very much.

Some of your best photos are going to happen while you wait for something. If you carry your camera always with you, that is. I think Roman Fox says that a lot on his YouTube channel and for a reason. (By the way, if you don’t follow him, please do. Great photographer).
So, I was waiting in the train station for a connection to the final destination and I had some time to kill. I grabbed my camera and went subject hunting. And there he was. He just sat on the train, and he was upset. I don’t know why, and that is part of the charm of the photo, but he was clearly regretting something or thinking about something he did wrong…
Anyway, that is why I love this photo so much. A simple photo that poses more questions than answers to the viewer.

Next photo coming up is also train related. I love trains and I love train stations. So many possibilities, so many subjects, so many points of interest.

So, this one was taken in Wrocław’s Main Station.
There was a big group of people on the platform waiting for the incoming train and at the same time, a lone passenger on the platform just in front of all of them. The architecture plays a big role here as well, as the repetition of patters is very pleasing. There’s also the “leading lines” element which in this case lead directly to the lonely man in the black suit. His clothes offer a good contrast, too.

In the previous photo I wrote about the repetition of patterns. So, in this next one I’m raising my bet.

I was photowalking through my city and the light was perfect. Plenty of shadows, ideal for high contrast photography. So I went to the Grand Theatre building to see what its columns could yield.
It was easy to find the spot. I just needed a subject to add the human element and so I waited. And I waited for quite some time, because the place was deserted. But finally, patience paid off and this guy just crossed through and even looked at the camera.

I like to mix things up a little bit. I think that part of the job of a photographer is to always try new things, not only to improve but to explore new ways.

This photo is an attempt to use the city elements to create something soothing, something easy and pleasing to the eye. I think this photo could be hung up on an office wall or something like that. I look at it and it relaxes me. I hope you feel the same here.

Well, this next photo caused me some trouble. Not the photo itself, but afterwards while I was editing it.

This was taken in Barcelona and it actually is one of the few photos I took in there that I previously thought I would get. I remember myself meandering on those narrow streets of the Gothic Quarter when I laid eyes on my subject. Everything was at its right place to get a symmetric composition. And in fact, I got it. I think the photo has power, indeed.

But then, when we went back home after the trip… I edited the photo and I consciously made it darker than it was. I embraced the dark tones, I wanted more shadows, eliminating detail from both sides of the street to give more importance to my subject. At first I loved it. I thought it was very similar to some photos I see on Insta that break the charts of “likeability”… But a few days ago I revisited the edit of this particular photo and gave it a little more light, a little more detail, a little more information. And I think I like it better. I posted it on Instagram and it flopped xD

Now I like both versions. In fact in here I’m posting the darker one just to be honest with my primal feeling but you have the brighter one on Insta if you wanna take a look at it.
Also, what I’m trying to say with all this is that we are allowed to change things, to mess up, to experiment with our photos because well, they’re ours.

As I said before, the trip to Barcelona was a rainy one. And here I was taking shelter from the rain on a doorstep.
Right next to me was this asian woman doing exactly the same and the Gods of Photography placed between us a pipe with a sticker of a face. The rest was just working the composition a little bit and wait for the moment to click the button.

Pure luck, I know.

I’ll tackle two photographs at the same time because they were both taken in the same location roughly with 10 minutes of difference between each other. This is the importance of seeing the potential of a location and to work the scene a little bit. Sometimes you can go home with a fuller bag of keepers if you just stay there a little extra time.

The pattern in the glass got my attention and given that this is an office building and it was more or less midday, I thought that maybe someone would take a break down there, have a smoke… and I was right.

Two subjects caught my eye and so they were chosen.

On the one hand, the lady was wearing this blazer with vertical stripes that matched perfectly with the horizontal slats of the office blind and the cherry on the cake was the dotted glass.
On the other hand, the arm of a man having a smoke. I just wanted to have this type of scene in my arsenal and again, the dotted glass adds some cool texture to it. The bycicle (did I say I always look for bycicles?) is a bonus.

And, last but not least… The final photo of this collection.

I don’t know if I am just terrible at it or what, but since I took this photo I’ve been trying to take more photos like this one. And to this day it’s been impossible. I love everything about it including that it’s very difficult to replicate.

I think it has to do with the cleanliness of everything. The building so white, the windows so dark, the movement of the bird so gracious, perfectly focused, even the photo is tilted to my delight. And everything done in camera.

I know that there’s this corner of a window that pops up in the photo but I embraced the rawness of the moment and decided that it should stay.

Aaaand, that’s all for today, folks.

I hope you enjoyed this selection of photos. I’ll do my best to keep adding material to my photography bag. Let’s see what the future has in store for me.

If you have any comments or would like to share your photography with me just write me an e-mail or say something via Insta.

Have fun!