“Quatre monts té Catalunya, quatre monts sants i sagrats, el Montseny, el Montsant, el Montsec i Montserrat.”
“Catalunya has four mountains, four mountains saintly and sacred, Montseny, Montsant, Montsec and Montserrat.”
–Popular local refrain
Early Morning Wakeup
With another storm rolling through, the photography itch was begging for a scratch. So it was off to the strange and dramatic geologic oddity that is the majestic Montserrat mountain, 45 minutes from the chaos, klaxons, and clamor of Barcelona.
After some thought, a few of these photographs may end up in my La Muntanya de Montserrat portfolio.
Images were made with the Nikon D850, most on the tripod with the 70-200mm telephoto lens, then worked through Adobe Photoshop Elements and Silver Efex Pro. They are sized for possible printing at (typically) 9000 x 6000 pixels at 300ppi. (That equals a print size of 30 x 20 inches and could easily be enlarged to twice that size or more, depending on anticipated viewing distant. It’s a pleasure to work with such large digital files.)
The Images
Starting the day with a sunrise at 0758 from near the small village of Collbató on the southern side of the Montserrat massif. Here, the sun makes a brief appearance between the misty-hazy horizon and the low clouds…
The main–and most obvious and touristed–human structure on the mountain, which famously contains La Moreneta, the Black Virgen of Montserrat…
Religious symbols abound, of course, this being the spiritual/religious heart of Catalunya…
Tree portraits in fog–my personal spiritual symbols…
Massive stone monuments are revealed as the fog begins to lift…
October Morning, #33, Montserrat, Catalunya, 2025
Finally, some good timing. I was working on a portrait of this enormous and gorgeous boulder when these two climbers walked by, on their way to one of the 4,000 or so climbing routes on the crags above…
