Photo Exhibition in Vejer de la Frontera

Yesterday, our camera group visited the charming hilltop village of Vejer de la Frontera to see an exhibition of photographs by Spanish photographer Pepe Gutierrez entitled "Chaouen, Tipos y Tipismos, en Azul" (roughly translated as "Chaouen, figures and local colour, in blue").

The exhibition was to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the 'twinning' of Vejer in Spain with Chaouen in Morocco and comprised a collection of 52 photographs, nearly all with a very strong 'blue' theme.

The photographs can be seen on Flickr (his account name is 'Codigo de Luz') but I have reproduced, below, two of my favourites

This first shows the figure of an old woman walking away from the camera being accompanied by a young boy (grandson, great grandson?) who is holding her stick. The little boy is looking back towards the camera and this is what makes the shot, for me. I also love the texture of the cobblestones and the step in the foreground.

This second shot really draws the eye into the frame with the alleyway disappearing around a corner. This effect is emphasised by the water trail which follows the path downwards. A simple shot but very effective.

I would like to say that all the photographs in the exhibition were as good as the above but this wasn't the case. A few were in need of cropping, to a greater or lesser extent, to eliminate unnessessary distractions or just to give the subject greater impact and others showed the effects of being enlarged beyond their optimum size, resulting in distortion and halo effects. This was particularly the case with some close-up portraits where there were occasions, also, when the eyes were not sharply focussed.

However, all in all I enjoyed the exhibition and it was good to be able to discuss the photographs over a coffee, with the rest of the group. I enjoyed the coffee, too.