vegans and vests

the scene is this: a lovely summer afternoon. four lovely friends congregate so that one of the aforementioned lovely friends can cook them all a delightful vegan feast. they are all wearing vests.

sound like an indie movie?
or a hippie collective?

yeah, okay. moving on.

maren (aforementioned cook who has her own fantastic and hilarious vegan blog which you should check out right now!) asked me to take pictures of all the food. of course, i agreed. i've been a little obsessed with food photography ever since spain. luckily, all the food was delicious (and photogenic, but i'll let you judge for yourself on that).

first things first: pureed kiwi smoothies! sprig of rosemary courtesy of maren's herb garden.

sundried tomatoes and sunflower seeds, ingredients for...

olive, tomato and sunflower seed tapenade! we drizzled balsamic reduction on the sides because we're artsy like that.

maren has cute kitchen decorations.

homegrown basil!

main event: portobello stackers! other ingredients include forbidden rice, tomatoes, spinach, onions, alfalfa sprouts and artsy balsamic dots.

and again from a different angle.

doesn't maren rock?

final project

hey, it's been a while. things have been a little crazy since i've gotten back from spain, so i haven't had time to post my final project, as promised earlier. but now there is time! so voila! (also, if you've been following my spain blogging, you've probably seen most of these, but now they're all unified around a theme! how lovely.)

negative space

art is often about finding a delicate balance: between positive and negative, controlled and spontaneous, dark and light, humorous and serious. in photography especially, contrasting two opposites is often what produces a remarkable image. for my project i decided to upset this delicate balance – after all, breaking the “rules” of composition in a deliberate and comprehensive manner is sometimes more interesting than following them.

specifically, i chose to focus on the way that negative space can bring out the positive in the subject. sometimes things are defined by what they aren’t, rather than what they are. this is a fitting metaphor for travel: we often compare a new place to our home, finding striking differences and thinking about what we have or don’t have at home. this is not a bad thing; differences often underline similarities. finding the humanity that we share despite cultural differences is a beautiful and meaningful part of travel. this is the underlying metaphor in all of my photographs, which, by surrounding the subject in space, allow for discovery of the subject and their small, unexpected beauty. in my pictures, the subjects are defined by what is around them; this parallels the traveler’s experience.

pigeons: a typical barcelona sight.

medieval cobblestones in girona. 

terminado

final day in spain was today. a pretty nostalgic mood settled upon the group, despite my stringent efforts to oppose it and just have as much fun as possible before everyone spread to their little corners of the continent. this morning we finalized our assignments and were then let loose upon the city to have lunch and do a little shopping. we stuffed ourselves with tapas and then came back to the resa to present our projects to everyone. after that we had tapas again for dinner and went to a flamenco show featuring what i have deemed to be the world's most spectacularly magnificent musical section: a singer, a drummer and a guitarist. their rhythm was chaotic but impeccable. it was a grand finale to an amazing trip. i apologize as i didn't take any pictures today, but when i get home i will post my final project!

#doce

today was absolutely lovely. this morning, as a treat, our group went to an arab bathhouse and soaked in pools of many different temperatures: super relaxing after yesterday's intensity. after that, we went for lunch at a cool asian fusion restaurant where their design motif was spontaneous, in a word. they encouraged public art on their walls. i made a fortune teller and stuck it on for good measure. after lunch we wandered down to la sagrada familia and checked out the copious construction going on there, and then headed to gracia to do some shopping (they happen to have a really excellent/slightly hipster camera store there which everyone became obsessed with). from there we proceeded to montjuic to see a fountain/lights show. unfortunately we were greeted there with rain and some magnificent lightning instead. so we ran for cover and took some night pictures instead once the rain cleared up.

walls of the restaurant! i've decided that when i get an apartment this is going to be my decorating scheme.

la sagrada familia! and cranes.

on the way to gracia we saw a delightful little girl prancing around. i had to take her picture.

domes in montjuic.

lamppost at night exudes loveliness!

#once

today was easily the most intense day of the trip: hiking, spelunking and swimming in the pyrenees was on the menu du jour. the cave entrance was (unbeknownst to us until we arrived) on top of a mountain, so we hiked up for about half an hour to get there. for a crowd of (mostly) out-of-shape artsy kids, this was a rather impressive feat, especially given that most of us lugged our cameras up the mountain and into the cave with us. spelunking was also pretty hardcore; there were some points where crawling was necessary. by the end of it, we were all muddy but luckily none of our cameras were any worse for wear, other than a fine layer of dusty clay that decided to settle on everyone and everything. after we hiked down and had lunch, we went swimming at a freezing-cold gorge with a waterfall. by the time we got back to barcelona in the evening most of us were fairly exhausted but still managed energy (and appetite) to go for dinner and a late-night stroll with gelato in hand.

crazy cave madness!

the whole group looked legit with helmets and headlamps.

moi after spelunking. i opted for the intense bit at the end, where the cave got so small it was necessary to do a army crawl/squirm manouver to get through. unfortunately there was a mud puddle on the way there. we decided a more appropriate slogan for my shirt would have been 'green is the new brown'.

gorgeous view of the pyrenees.

they have prairie plants there too! rock on, fellow albertans.

#diez

this morning a lovely surprise awaited us: our group leader, angie, had arranged a meeting with her photographer friend who lives in the city. we took the metro to poblenou (a post-industrial artist neighborhood) to meet up with him. we walked around, taking pictures for a while, and then we were invited in to see his portrait studio and take pictures using his lights. needless to say we had a blast and a half posing and taking pictures of each other. after that we had lunch and the best gelato in the entire world. then we headed back to the res to edit and rest.

fake symmetry created by a reflection.

random blocks and cool graffiti!

view of an industrial building from below.



cyclists!

a silly portrait of new friends lucy and lauren!

#nueve

today we woke up late-ish (a nice change) and headed to la boqueria market for breakfast. i had a crepe again - this time it was goat cheese, honey and spinach. probably one of the best-tasting things i've ever had in my life. then we wandered around the market for a bit, taking pictures. after that we did a little shopping in the born district (we found an adorable bake shop) and went back to the resa for photo editing time. we ventured out again for a late lunch at an asian-fusion restaurant called mosquito, and then had several hours of shooting time around the area. we met up with the rest of the group for a birthday surprise for one of the girls in the group, which turned out to be cupcakes from aforementioned bake shop and hangouts in the park! we spent several hours frolicking, eating cupcakes and having scream-y showtunes singalongs before leaving the park - only to realize that we'd been locked in. after thoroughly inspecting the locks and fence height (both impenetrable to our efforts) we found an alternate way out over a makeshift construction fence and went back to the res.

tomatoes at la boqueria!

sassy fish face translates to 'what-ever.'

an artist sketches away on the sidewalk.

the friendly but shy owner of the adorable cupcake shop.

spanish busker (playing a 12 string guitar, no less).