One Roll in a Dark Bar

There is a bar in the Gothic quarter, narrow as a corridor, where the television is always on and nobody watches it until Barça plays. I walked in on a Tuesday with the last roll of Tri-X in my bag. The owner knows me by now. He pointed at the corner table with his chin, which in this city means: sit down, be quiet, take whatever you like.

I push the film to 3200 and shoot at a thirtieth of a second, f/1.8, focusing by feel. Half the frames will be soft and I have stopped apologising for it. In that kind of light you are not recording detail. You are recording heat.

The Match

Barça were playing away. When they scored, the room didn't explode; it leaned forward, all at once, like a wave going through the chairs. I got two frames of it — hands, the backs of heads, the blue glow of the screen on their faces. It is the only situation where I photograph people who are not performing for anyone, including me.

Most of street photography in this city is a lesson in waiting to be forgotten.

At halftime the owner brought me a small beer I hadn't ordered and asked whether I was going to put him on the internet. I said no. I put him in the notebook instead, and later in a print he will never see unless he asks for it.

On Sundays I play with a group of men from the neighbourhood, badly and with commitment. It has taught me more about photographing people than any book — how a body moves when it forgets that it is being looked at.

Walking Home

I left after one. The Gothic quarter at that hour smells of bleach and cold stone, and the only people out are the ones cleaning it. I walked to Urquinaona with the camera in my hand, not shooting, just letting the roll end.

The prints came back with grain like sand. Two of them are good. One shows the owner mid-sentence, hand raised, television light on his face, and it looks like every bar in this city and also like nobody else's.