An Island Of Hope

Sakshi Parikh takes a look at the sharp street photography by José Luis Barcia Fernández filled with vivid geometry and strong juxtapositions.

- Jose Luis Barcia Fernandez

When José Luis Barcia Fernández moved from Pola de Siero, a beautiful village in northern Spain to the sprawling metropolis of Madrid, he was overwhelmed. The slow, peaceful pace of the countryside was replaced by a chaos, that can consume a person in a bustling city.

As with any geographical move, one starts adapting bit by bit. You may start by taking in the new architecture of a place. If you’re a photographer, the light and how it affects your senses comes into play too. José started exploring his new home, wandering around the streets, shooting as he went along and slowly building up a visual diary filled with humans and architecture, that coexist in harmony. This acute awareness of a new place is obvious in José ’s images, where he frames and juxtaposes his subjects with extreme shadow play, making them almost graphical looking.

“I try to give an epic point to my images, either through the use of light and shadow, or simply confronting the subject to large architectural structures. Even in this pictures the protagonist is the human being, not the building or the geometrical shapes.”

José’s Interaction with the Camera