Barcelona Carnival 2007: Feather Mask

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Carnival 2007 is on, today there will be a parade or Rua de Carnaval departing at 20:30 from carrer Gran de Gràcia/Plaça de Lesseps up to Als Jardinetes de Gràcia. There will be other parades but this will be the biggest. Schools like every year in Barcelona, organized their own carnestoltes where the strangest costumes could be seen. I took two scores of photographs of kids in assorted outfits but I was not expecting the cherry on top at the very end of yesterday's party, in my daughter's schoolyard. Mysteriouly and seductively, out of the blue, showed up this woman wearing an attractive smile behind an exuberant feather mask, like an illustrious lady travelling incognito on a secret affair during a Venetian Masquerade.

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Stairway to Catalan Art Nouveau

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If you look up under "palau" or "modernisme" blogger labels at the bottom of this post you will find information about famous Barcelona's Concert Hall i.e Palau de la Musica Catalana. You can find stunning samples of Catalan Art Nouveau or Modernisme in this building although you are not allowed to take pictures and show your friends. Maybe that's why my picture got a little blurry and I had to reinvent it a little bit to make worth (is it?).

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Barcelona Beach: RACC Helicopter

During past Pirena 2007 dog show on the beaches of Barcelona I spotted this RACC helicopter. It called my attention that some fishermen were there already and didn't seem to be scared, in fact I thought it was risky for them. Given that you don't see copters landing on piers that often I took the snap and voilà. RACC stands for Real Automóvil Club de Catalunya, an association with more than a million affiliates, in fact it is the first insurance company in the car business in Spain. It is also related with the travel sector and widely known for organizing sports events such as rallies. I would like to talk about photography now, about the rule of thirds. Although obvious for many, we tend to forget it sometimes. It consists of tracing two sets of intersecting lines so we get a square in the middle of our image (some cameras have a grid). The subject should be in one of the corners of such box for emphasis. Another thing to bear in mind is the horizon line which can be aligned more or less with the top or the bottom of the square whether you want to highlight the upper part or the bottom of the image. Maybe I should have lower the camera a little bit!