It's not easy to assimilate the challenge of translating into images one of the most visited and photographed buildings in Barcelona, maybe also in Europe or maybe even the world... If the building also bears the signature of Antoni Gaudí and it's listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, then the challenge is frightening.
The question is, what can a photographer bring with a series of images that try to interpret the Casa Batlló? Probably two things that applied to architectural photography seem different but actually are, of course, nothing new. Photography is no different than any other of the arts and, as all of them, is based first on a unique way of looking at reality and interpreting it and, second, on establishing a communication with the viewer that generates a fluent exchange of ideas and emotions about the work.
To interpret the Casa Batlló with images able to attract the viewer's attention and seduce him means searching in every frame the consistent continuity of each and every one of the essential elements of Gaudí graphically expressed as lines, shapes and colors. If like me you're an architecture photographer raised in Barcelona and you have the good fortune to live no more than fifteen minutes away from the most important works of Antoni Gaudí, then the difficulty of graphically interpreting the building is increased by the daily relationship between each other and perhaps it prevents you seeing it aesthetically. But therein lies the only way to look for a photographer who really wants to be called as such, to express strongly in an orderly succession of frames the plastic power of the essentially simple and attractive visual elements of this or any building because that will allow the viewer to recognize them and, from that moment of fascination, communicate with it.
Architectural photography, as I conceive it ,works on different layers, the first one that presents the most simple abstraction of the elements of the frame such as lines, shapes and colors, the second, the surprise of circumstantially interpreting them as a set of a building and third, recognized in this way the plastic elements in the photograph, the most direct and open communication possible with the viewer. If communication is established in such simple terms, it is successful, then the photographs will be interpreted with the same energy and powerful fascination in the eyes of a viewer anywhere in the world.
Applying a constant rigor in an expressive look at the Casa Batllo and with the clear intention to convert these photos into a communication tool, I created this series of images, a unique assignment and an incredible career opportunity that the ownership of the Casa Batllo entrusted me.
But it is you who must tell me if I've done it ...
