Showing posts with label Seville. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Seville. Show all posts

Jun 8, 2009

Cruz y Ortiz - Santa Justa Train Station, Seville, Spain, 1991.

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In preparation for the Universal Exposition of Seville (Expo'92), Spain, the town decided to create some infrastructures to wellcome the millions of visitors that would wish to enjoy the event.

A new airport, designed by Rafael Moneo, and a new railway station, designed by the sevillian architects Cruz y Ortiz, were built.

I had the opportunity to photograph both sites on assignment for the portuguese architectural magazine "Architecti".






On a former post about Expo'92, I showed you the Pabellon de la Navegación by the architect Guillermo Vásquez Consuegra, also a sevillian.

Today, I will show you some photographs of Estación Santa Justa, by Antonio Cruz Villalón and Antonio Ortiz García.
Besides their office in Seville, they also run an office in Amsterdam.









This enormous facility was not yet completely finished, as you can understand in some images.
If I remember correctly, only about half of the tracks were already on duty.

My work turned out to be very unpleasant, as the station guards decided to bother me and I was plagued by constant interruptions. Sometimes I had just prepared my Sinar camera for a shot and they came to tell me that I couldn't photograph from "here", I could only photograph from "there", and pointed a little abstract point somewhere a little further...
Half an hour later they would come again and say that "you can't photograph from this track, you can only photograph from that track!".

Naturally, I would not only miss the shot, as each time I would have to carry all the stuff around...

And so the game kept going on for a while, until I got so bored that I left everything behind and rushed to the administration complaining. Needless to say that I already had a written permission since the first minute I started working.

Very often, the "small" people in the authority chain like to think that they are very important and try to play the big boss.

It can be rather annoying to play such power games, when you are struggling with thirty or fourty kilograms of photographic equipment...

In fact, the same situation was encountered in Consuegra's Pabellon, and in Expo'98 in Lisbon, to name a few.

As mentioned before, the transparencies were shot with a Sinar f2 camera. Lenses by Schneider Kreuznach. Sheetfilm in 4x5 inches (or 9x12) by Kodak - the photograph depicting the yellow train, was shot with the same camera, but using a Linhof Rapid Rollex 6x7 rollfilm back.
Very heavy tripod from Linhof.
Sekonic and Minolta lightmeters, etc., etc.

Lots of (beer) durst (german word for thirst) by the end of the day...

(Excuse me for my poor scans. I did them some time ago, when my skills were still lesser than they are now).

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Jan 16, 2009

Guillermo Vázquez Consuegra - Pabellon de la Navegación en Sevilla

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I had the chance of photographing three of the public buildings built in Sevilla, when the town prepared for celebrating Expo'92. Rafael Moneo's new airport, Cruz y Ortiz new railway station, and the Spanish Pavilion by the sevillian architect Guillermo Vázquez Consuegra, which I take the opportunity to show. I shot the three buildings on assignment from the architectural portuguese magazine "Architécti". In those times, the magazine was still run by the architect Luiz Trigueiros, and I think it's quality level could well qualify as international. We used to cover buildings in depth, usually not less than thirty photographs each work. I used to shoot them all in large format. So, we had dozens of sheet-films to develop when I got back home. Hours and hours of hard work on the Jobo processor, timing the process with a stopwatch!




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In those times, besides carrying a Sinar f2 and all it's paraphernalia, I used to bring along a really heavy Linhof tripod, one of those kind that lasts forever, built like a german panzer. Also a case full of large-format lenses, plus another case full of sheet-film holders, plus loads of 120 Ektachrome for the roll-film holder... plus light-meters and color-meter, plus cc and various other filters... plus... plus... plus...
Carrying all that through and around those BIG buildings, sometimes having to step away, so that it all fits in those tiny 4x5's...
If you add a minute to think that in Sevilla the temperature often rises well above 40 degrees Celsius, you quickly conclude that I must have been in good shape!

I wish I could sing like The Byrds: "But I was much older then, I'm younger than that now!"...

Have fun!

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