‘Photography and travel’ by five intimate looks

The impulse of photographers to travel and show us new realities that go beyond the closest things, which we already known, is a constant issue since the invention of the medium. In this sense, photography, as a tool which is able to record and document the world, has fascinated photographers who have travelled around the world with the intention of discovering places and situations that escape our most immediate reality.

At a time when both travelling and photographing are accessible options to almost everyone, and as the writer Paul Bowles points out on his talk on travel literature, it is the authors' personal relationship with its surroundings what adds value to their stories. In this sense, the emphasis shifts from the place itself to the effect the stories have on the person who writes or, in this case, photographs.

Beyond the diversity of places and times shown through the photographic series of this exhibition, there is a shared attitude and an intimate look on all of these authors.

Thus, Manel Armengol’s pictures from the late seventies reveal a country that remained closed to the outside world at that time, strange and unknown, which the author shows us from his most personal gaze. With an approach that reminds more Eastern tradition’s oral narratives, Jordi Esteva's pictures allow us to tour the mysterious island of Socotra, in which the author accompanies the grandson of the last sultan, the young Ahmed, through landscapes that seem more literary than real. From a perspective of proximity, José Ramón Bas shows us a different look of Senegal, which flees from stereotypes to show us, through technically manipulated snapshots, the most tender side of this country. From her part, the young photographer Inês Gonçalves has travelled to former Portuguese colonies such as Goa or Cape Verde, making striking black-and-white portraits of its inhabitants. Finally, the pictures of Paolo Nozolino, another author whose biography and works are intimately linked, show scenes taken in Morocco or Egypt that stand out for the dramatic use of light that brings us closer to a mental state more than purely geographical.

Marriages is an exhibitions programme held at the exhibitions hall of BODEGAS RODA since 2007, based on Foto Colectania’s collection of photographs.