Some comments on street photography in Barcelona & on reviewing your older images

Street Shadows. Barcelona, Catalunya, 2010

I was just going back over some of my digital files from 2010 when we were living in Barcelona and I had just jumped into digital photography in a big way. Barcelona–what a great place for street photography! Plenty of great places to investigate, hordes of people on the streets (La Rambla!) and the place is so filled with gawking tourists that one more nerdie guy on the street with a camera is barely worth noting. Folks don’t seem to get as bent out of shape with privacy as they might in this country–that is my impression, at least. I certainly felt much freer over there with my street photography than I do here (maybe I need to try NYC!).

I did notice a couple of things while looking back at these older images…

First, my post-processing skills were pretty primitive (one very basic issue: many images lacked adequate contrast).

Second, I was going through my put-a-Photoshop-border-and-title-or-“untitled”-on-every-photograph phase (as above)–glad I got over that one.

Third, my composition was generally not too bad.

So, here is a recommendation about those old images you have saved on that spare, portable, dust-covered hard drive in the file cabinet: go back through them! You might find a few potential gems that might be worth spitting on and then polishing with your new, higher level of post-processing skills. Also, your “eye” has surely changed and you may recognize a nice image where before it didn’t seem particularly outstanding. (Beware, though, the majority of them–if you are like me–will be of the Why did I save that one! variety.) Finally, you’ll see how far you have come over the years and you will hopefully be encouraged and motivated by that.