I would like to make several portraits, a series of "Spanish Soul", maybe I will do them consecutively or I will alternate some other artistic work with different themes in between. The work is made to be enjoyed in detail, recreated in an intimate and homely environment, where peace, guitar and soul reign together. Powerful combination. Hope you'll enjoy it...

Ripe fruits that unfold their beauty, so calm and haughty.

Sweetness tallying "the intoxicated colors of autumn",
The treasure on the table could rapt us, at its maximum splendor.

A day half-dreamed, with warm and just-felt breezes from the window.
O eyes half-dreaming, O life half-lived.

This solitary autumn, the human season.

Half a mile from home, at the edge of the abandoned unirrigated lands, where paths were sparse, an olive tree stood. On top of that abandoned, twisted and dry tree, a woman was sat. The farmers who had felled its mates were dead and gone long ago and a whole tangle of weeds, had grown instead. The simple fact of not feeling the earth beneath her feet was quite an incentive to desire to fly, to fly where imagination would take her, as high as wings could reach. At that moment, though she felt the cold of the place in her feet, in her body, but her soft wings and their continuous movement gave warmth instead. The question was: were her wings plumed indeed for such far flights? There, among dry branches and still some olives hanging from the tree, immerged in that strong contrast, she was safe to rest. Now cold, silence and oblivion hold illimitable dominion over all. Sharp dry twigs had scratched her, but there the woman began to feel as if she too could go flying away.

White as a symbol of purity surrounds the scene and in the end a companion friend came to rest on her arm. It did not feel fear, felt confidence and warmth. That day, two pigeons climbed up to the forgotten olive tree ... it seemed as if eventually they would start their flight and the bond of their common nature now drew them irresistibly together. A fraternal flight!, beating in them feverishly the heart of life. Seasons passed, time passes and the only thing that seems firm and sure could be Nature. Beautiful... thanks to being wild and abandoned, to being fearful and overwhelming.

This scene mates Time, probably touching the viewer, and the moment has been predestined from eternity for us mere mortals to dream.

In this artwork I tried to represent a scene set in a past time, dealing with some tasks that are already more in disuse ... although pruning and collection of branches is still done, while human beings live from agriculture. Now in the autumn, I thought about setting it among dry leaves with their autumnal colors. However, when I finished the image and looked at the scene and I felt within me that it represented something like an apocalyptic moment, a time after some kind of disaster, the end of the known world. Thus, the woman has a lost sight, giving to us the feeling that she is also lost, without any fixed direction. The colors of the sky, could be those after a cataclysm or something tremendous, mixture of smoke, ashes in the ground, no building but only remains of them.
And I began to wonder about ... those famous words that Einstein said, or are attributed to him. He said: "I do not know with what weapons the Third World War will be fought, but in the Fourth World War they will use sticks and stones".

When I saw the woman with that stick in her hand and everything around her with a desolate aspect, I felt that it could be a future scene, which humanity will never expect. That good sense and love between people reign before. Something so difficult, but not impossible.

A non-classical portrait. Creative arrangement.
Relaxing and enjoying life...

She has the fan spread out on her skirt, and a lost look that wanders through her dreams.
In the background the sea, with its amplitude and a sailboat that moves away, following an unknown path. Perhaps the sea breeze is enough to refresh her senses and does not need the continuous swing of the fan. In the scene, it combines a challenging sky, water with its extensive kingdom great knower of so many places in the world and precious land where she treads her way. A land that knows her and that loves her.
We keep on watching as she shows us her fan proudly.

He loves me, he loves me not, he loves me, he loves me not... this artwork represents a little... the doubt of love in particular and by extension our doubts about everything. The pain of uncertainty. For me, it deals with the fact that we must constantly ask ourselves about truth and continuity of things, today it is like this way ... it does not mean that in 20 years it'll be the same, not even that tomorrow will be the same. We must take into account the constant need for change. Everything changes, desired or not desired.
When I started to get interested in artistic photography, I liked to look at the artworks of an artist who used colors and textures profusely.
That need of being innovative, creative, using several resources at the same time remains intact in me from the very beginning. This artwork, "Desamor" follows that line.
I remember that I looked at her images and wrote some comments about them but that artist did not answer anything, neither to me nor to anyone ... she shared her images and that's all!. Talking or trying to interact was like going to have a conversation with a stone wall :)
She gave nothing in return only her artwork.
I'm also feeling good with myself about the fact that during these years, I have tried to be different, more in accordance with my personality. I have interacted and exchanged opinions with many people, known or unknown ... and in that sense I feel satisfied with myself.

In all the artworks I have always tried to take care of both the representation of a scene and where it is set. For that, every so often, except in summer, especially at changing seasons... I go out to photograph here and there, some scenarios. In this image "La Ermita", the place is very close to me, it's a hermitage that is no longer used, in Pliego. Just where it's situated, there's hardly any flock and no cultivated land. Only stones ... and few carob trees that were always planted to feed animals with their fruit. The pods of carob tree.
I feel the arrangement of the scene has been very successful and set in my land, my customs, which is what motivates me the most to continue in photography. Believing that there are so many activities, uses or customs, some already lost and others just being lost, that it's quite an incentive to somehow try to immortalize that way of life. Within my possibilities and access to places, I'll try to do my best. A hug!

My thought, always there inside. Sometimes sweet and soft that almost sleeps me, relaxing, full of happiness and other fast and crazy. My thought, the most free, the most precious ... no one knows what goes through the mind at each moment, perhaps can be the only thing that we can keep jealously, with pride.
A look, a wink, an involuntary gesture are some paths through which our most vital thought escapes. Then, at the end when we want, in abundance it comes out in words, music, works, lyrics ... in many ways. Always there, faithful friend: "My thought".

For me, artistic photography is presented as the vehicle of the remembrance of our experiences, of our life. A means to define ourselves and be able to fix our values. Could be seen as well as an escape route, a catharsis, a calm for our pressures and a place for our feelings. May be important where we choose to be, imprisoned and hidden by a large stone wall or look outside through the window and enjoy distance, its beauty and possibilities. The woman can choose ... she has a beautiful window towards the immensity. Keeping her memories, good or bad ... all could be tucked inside her cauldron and handled firmly over her head.
She hears birds in the distance and feels pure and clean air ... and thinks that she would like to be the protagonist of her own life and to achieve her own dreams.

I have always been attracted to the unreal, dreamed or imagined scenes and in that aspect, artistic and edited photography allows us to give shape to practically everything. This sea does not seem the same as we are used to, its tide is governed by two moons and the woman comes out of the water perhaps with some strange mission and a lot of determination in her face.
It looks like the scene of a movie. Only one of my favorite actors, Charlton Heston, is missing in the scene, the only thing I do not share with him is his love of guns. His roles in movies were just glorious!

Here I present to you: "Looking at the Sea, I Dreamed ...". I've missed very much having time to devote to artistic photography. Although I've spent two lovely months playing bass, I already wanted to immerse myself again in lights and colors, in unreal atmospheres, dreamed or lived, in feelings, in scenes ... I have missed a lot. Many people think of getaway places to go on holidays, less hot places or new ones to know. I only dream of being able to walk again the same paths, full of rain, full of fog, always silent, that awaken my sensations. I dream of seeing Ricote summit snowed again. Sometimes happiness is not so far as we may imagine...

... And in the end, it is always your hands that have helped me. Those familiar arms that bring me back to reality. One can change, one can be trying, one can even move around, but your safety is always there. "Help me, get my feet back on the groun. Won't you please, please help me?".

Days ago, I was talking to my nephew, who studies Fine Arts, about the meaning that, on the one hand, "aesthetics for aesthetics" has. Do direct photography ... or try to find an idea or story to an image. In the end, we decided that of course both cases are valid, but when dealing with art, it could be lawful that there's an idea underlying, which should be transmitted to others. Art as a means, not a simple end. That is the question, beauty for beauty, or involving a search for meaning, try to present a sense of aliveness and interconnectedness with both, others and life.

In this image, we try to make people think about levels as different as material and spiritual ones could be. What is the meaning of materiality in our life, in any case if material wealth can enrich our spiritual part. That uncertainty of where we will go and also with nothing with us. Formerly, it was thought that people from other worlds had to be paid for our trip to be successful. They put coins next to people who had already left.
For me, the final sentiment that remains, is that of "roughness", a sudden change ... that we do not know how to pass ... or how to prepare.
I'm finally left with the idea of ​​the great opposition between materiality and emotional health or even emotional wealth.

For me, this scene depicts an emotional suffering.
Around only darkness stands, nothing is certain and it's not easy to know with certainty where we're moving. Usually, affectivity, emotional appreciation, let's say affection ... is very unstable, perhaps because as a feeling and the field in which feelings move, is very changeable. Why should it be like this? Good question!, a question that I have always asked myself, many times. When the affective attachment becomes a detachment, a pain occurs, clearly exemplified by the hands of the woman. Her hands try to cry out the inner emptiness produced by the affliction. Pain that has occurred. Among people, affective ties have too many nuances, they are too changeable.
Maybe people should work or try hard in getting more stable in affectivity, because may be something that involves not only ourselves, but everyone around us. After all, in an external wound, we can almost "feel and see" the pain, but in emotions, you can not see anything. Therefore, we should not usually measure and value so badly dealing with feelings.

Bravery could be understood as courage or natural aggressiveness, to face new situations, complications ... The woman faces the bull, and the animal has noticed her presence, now it should come an outcome.
Which I leave to your imagination. The drama is already raised.
When I went to photograph the bull, the first time I felt some fear, although there's a fence, between observers and the corral, is very weak. My heart accelerates when the animal stops grazing or rubbing the horns on the piles of dry branches and looked still ahead.
The most exciting thing was when it stayed in an expectant attitude and one did not know what was going to happen next, what would be its next move? I hope you like it...

These lights are so strong that they're continually exciting her mind and vision, which are now exhausted. This corridor seems to have an end, but it's another door, possibly leading to another door and a new door again ... without any ending. Thus mind works, as cornered, it thinks the same thing repetitively, it moves in the same overexcited corners, without an end. And the mind does not know how to get out of that state. The brain takes all its power, its own will ... away from feelings or soul which are more calm and serene. - "Do not look at the doors, do not look for an exit, stop your search" -, our instincts and exhausted body tell our mind, but it continues in its rampant, endless madness. Only pure exhaustion will put an end.

The parallel lines drawing the floor and the ceiling point towards that place without any possible end, an exhausting wandering. The path of the mind. There is no exit, no windows, no doors that can help. The end is reached when the exhausting work of the mind ceases in its endeavor. They say that our second brain is our stomach. Being able to suffer and control the body equally. The woman holds tightly in her chest the only certainty she has got, her doll ... while she is up in the whirlwind of madness and with a certain fear in her face, her eyes expressing frustration and amazement.

Quiet, she is waiting for the end of this exhausting wear, without a break in the mind; Wondering: "Why are you so unequal in this balance: the soul with feelings vs. mind itself?"... She keeps waiting...

Too early that morning, my steps took me wandering through those fields. All the time I looked at that beautiful dawn sky, which at the same time kept bewitching darkness of night in the heights and strength and warmth of the sun on the horizon. By looking at the immensity in the sky, I found some relief to my restlessness, some respite to my discomfort, which had been dragging too many months.
And in the end, I stopped before that view, although the mill was against the light, I could distinguish its door and the worn facade, signs of having suffered many battles of climate, rather that kind of battle that is fought with the erosion caused by the deruling of time. In fact, that land did not seem to receive much water. Some lost almond tree appeared, here and there. Apart from the little care an almond tree needs, these trees had been given little pampering.

I could not take my eyes off the immensity of the sky, beautiful clouds and high above, there was a beautiful formation of ducks, traveling swiftly to another warmer place. Their breasts shone, gilded by the rising sun. And down, lost like a strange bulge, covered because of the cold, a woman caught my attention. She was sitting next to an almond tree, besides her basket woven with esparto. And although she was also part of the strange set of backlights, I could distinguish her face. A lost, soulless look of not finding what one is looking for. The basket remained half empty, there was not much almond harvest. Perhaps because of this, her apathy or discouragement?
Beautiful people who work the land, who with their efforts seek their fruits.
And in the end ... so long I had been walking and looking at the sky, certainly, I was captivated instead by looking at the scene made by the woman and the almond tree.

They were the Earth itself, its very meaning and the passage of generations.

When I hold you in my hands and I tighten your pegs ... everything becomes tense, only to give the most refined notes, the most perfect ones. Headstock... how much I love you!. I could think that you suffer, when wood creaks, when strings are tightened, but -"instead of breaking you, you always give me the best of yourself"-.
Your best intonation and I adjust you, squeeze you, spin you and you continue by my side, with that so capricious and beautiful form. Your mission is worthy and even if you made strange, suffering noises ... You never complain. How I love you, Clavijero!.

Awakening of the soul.
Would anybody know what it's being left behind, in each moment of life? or even the extent of us that remains in each place we've stayed?. Moments dwell in our mind, being recorded forever, going deeper inside, without understanding how, they get into our soul, and awake our conscience, waking up other layers of thought more hidden and sweet. Deeply. It's such a relief!
Today, our bodies are here, tomorrow in another place... great fragility of life! maybe without any form, any speaking ... in another crux of time, playing so sly with these moments, she remained astonished, so charming that she or minutes passing should fade.
Soul wakes up, glimmering small flashes of time bridges that could exist. It seems that different dimensions rub against each other, greet us ... saying that it is another part of our spirituality. Minds empty of thoughts in a world of quietness.

When she woke up, she was a little more alive, and then she slept again. Was there perhaps other, more distinctive, way to use senses, spiritual levels, to live life? Half-hidden, the woman stays, in changing moods ... the water splashes and it is the only noise around, to stay just foggy in another space, reality or dream?.

"If you go fast, you will not realize it. Better to look at the mirror of emptiness and wake up".

For several years at Easter, I have liked to publish an  artwork dealing with a religious theme. However, this time I have decided to present "something mystical", which is reflected in this sacred, wondrous procession. Could be a holy search, "the search for oneself".

Behind the wall does exist what one may be yearning for but does not possess at all, what one tries to touch but can not reach. What one is longing for and never fulfils.
Does it sound sad? I'd prefer it doesn't.
What one knows it could be and is certainly not.
The wall rises like a giant, stubborn and gray, gloomy and immovable.
One can not remove it. It seems as it is never going to collapse.
Never.
When one feels fresh air from the peaks in the face, looks at the sky, happiness and freedom on the other side ... one can feel it, but one can not see it.
It's a bit like describing dreams or sensitivity in people ... "you can feel it, but you can not materialize it in front of your eyes".
Does it sound sad? I'd prefer it doesn't.
Feeling infinite details, dreams, joys ... but they never come.
Never.
Does it sound sad? I'd prefer it doesn't.

That old feeling was not a problem. No more there were tears in her eyes.

Memories and echoes now medleyed together, hurting her no more.

That was her bread, for she was the baker.

Oh! terracotta shadows heaped on the walls of that kitchen, while

the mute pestle adorned the place, hanging in that dark corner of her home.

That was her bread, for she was "The Woman with a Bread".

Et moi j'te connais à peine, mais ce s'rait une veine, qu'on s'en aille un peu comme eux. On pourrait se faire sans qu'ça gêne, de la place pour deux. Mais si ça n'vaut pas la peine, que j'y revienne, Il faut me l'dire au fond des yeux. Quel que soit le temps que ça prenne, quel que soit l'enjeu.
"Je veux être un homme heureux".

She was always like she had a hideout to herself. That afternoon was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a summer day, bringing along a lot of idleness. Her steps had led her to the attic, where a large chest stood full crammed waiting to bring out its lurking beauties. Surely, there would be many fabrics inside to be embroidered. She liked to embroider, in those long days, neither cold nor still so hot. It was, of course, the path that the needle took what made her remain in perfect happiness. Traveling the little slim piece of iron among interwoven fibers, tirelessly now above, now below, an indispensable part o a needle's life, could be "up and down"; This nature of the task revealed relaxing for her senses. It was fortunate for her the fact of finding happiness in gently touching those fabrics or brushing the cheek with them to consider its softness and after then choosing colors. These were pleasures that surely filled many hours of her days.

Full as her mind was of thoughts, she was keenly observant, not loosing any details in that corner. Comfortable with the slope of the roof, poorly lofty, she had become accustomed to it. Being the light that came through the casement enough to illuminate the entire space. In one place, in a slightly forgotten wall, the clock kept time, the pendulum followed its movement, quite rhythmic ...tic, tac, tic, tac... the only sound in the entire place, louder than her own breathing more intense than her own beating. She had climbed the stairs barefoot, as if it were a little prank, to get to that place, her somewhat childish experiment. When she often forgot to pull the pendulums, to move the chains, time no longer existed in that room, everything was forgotten in time, in the days that were spent in the lower part of the house, of her home. How can she deny herself the pleasure of that place? It was beyond her. She felt that she breathed an atmosphere of paradise.

At certain times, she had hurt her hands in the lid, which was heavy and when she opened it, it had a strange tendency to slam, without any warning. No sooner had she stirred many clothes already ... than a beautiful cat came inside through the small window. First, the animal looked cautiously and when it saw that the woman was poring over her tasks, without hesitation, let itself fall inside the room. When they saw each other, the woman did not scream in amazement nor screeched scared, she was not even upset. She liked cats and this one was affectionate and accustomed to not being alone, its hair was silken. With hesitant steps, she approached and finally with a doughty heart, she caressed the head, the back and see those reddish colors and white mustaches up close. Little by little, a playtime began, the woman forgot her sewing and looked for a reel of thread to play, what a surprise! There was a little ball too!. Suddenly she felt like a girl again. She enjoyed watching the cat grab the ball and jump again to catch it, doing pirouettes in the somehow magic atmosphere.
The time for rest arrived almost at the same time for both ... the animal stretched its back and its silken hair was now in a wild gossamer texture. Also, the chimney sweep came out through the small chimney of the clock, at each chime. Acting accordingly, the cuckoo, we can not forget the cuckoo, who with his little peak stroke the hours, pointing directly to her ear ... reminding her that it was time to go downstairs. To return to tasks, to return home. When the woman turned her head again from the clock to the direction of the cat, it was gone!. He had slunk away through where it entered, that small window, with an exit to the world ... always full of soft dreamy light and a thousand of sweet sensations.

With the special collaboration of Andrey Smeyan (with the image of the cat).

Original image by Andrey Smeyan - DSC_0506s

It was some time ago, far in time when life and the fields and thoughtful days joyously fit together. Poised between ice and fire, she was baking her bread. Heat in the oven and cold in the snowy peaks outside, far and not really so far away ... this scene unfolds with a clear cold winter sky outside. Dedicated to such simple and basic tasks, like making bread, the woman lives her days, ephemeral in that house, ephemeral in heart and mind. In fact, she could have a thousand tales to tell, knowing the language of this landscape, the interior of her own home. One by one, these are places that communicate constantly with the woman, if not verbally, hence... in a cognitive or sensory way. Mountains, entwined paths, surfeited rivers with falling snow, all offered peace of mind, they were not shifting. They remained where they should be, they behaved as expected from them and thus created a pleasant sense of security in ragtime.
Days passed, one behind the other, developing a significance. Each new day wrapped in the aroma of baked bread. Can there be a more delicious, sweet or endearing aroma? "the smell of a home". How many times has she let her mind wander?, with idle gaze staring at the coals inside the oven, playing with the flames, unwholesome, little dancers. The essence that vivified around this home was known: the sack of flour, aromatic thyme ... and even the snails that the hedgehog was eating, who in turn was seeking its sustenance and prowled freely among these spaces.

"Love is the light, scaring darkness away.
The power of love, a force from above,
Cleaning my soul...
Purge the soul, make love your goal.

Envy will hurt itself. Let yourself be beautiful.
Love is danger, Love is pleasure
Love is pure, the only treasure".

Lyrics from The Power of Love (c) The original 80s version, by Frankie Goes To Hollywood.