Gringa Española

The Decisive Moment

Elena — Thu, 06 May 2010 23:02:23 +0000

Henri Cartier-Bresson believed in what he called le moment decisif, the decisive moment that allows the photographer only a fraction of a second to capture. He helped popularize photojournalism with his street photography and the way in which he captured ‘real life.’ Cartier-Bresson is most definitely one of my favorite photographers, and an influencing factor behind most photojournalists today. It takes a patient and discriminating eye to capture the decisive moments he took below:

Photos © Henri Cartier-Bresson

JPG Magazine is holding a contest in honor of Cartier-Bresson. Submissions must be inspired by the French photographer and the winner gets to attend the MOMA exhibit in NYC and have their experience published in JPG. My submission is a picture taken of my grandparents, a typical moment of my grandmother buttoning up my grandfather’s jacket, to keep him warm on his daily walk.

Inspired by the contest and the exhibit, I dusted off an old flash drive and played around with a few of my photos to see how Cartier-Bresson has influenced my images. I can only hope that I came even inches closer to the way Cartier-Bresson captured the everyday and spectacular moments of people’s lives.

Photos © Elena Vazquez

Weekly Photo: Small Town Galicia

Elena — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 17:36:07 +0000

Small towns across Galicia are left deserted as their inhabitants make their way to the cities where jobs are more plentiful.

Weekly Photo: Mothers of Plaza de Mayo

Elena — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 22:22:03 +0000

Every Thursday you will find women with white scarves tied around their heads marching around the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires. The white scarves symbolize baby blankets, in memory of the lost children of the Dirty War. During this war, people mysteriously “disappeared,” and were often tortured and then killed. The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo met in an effort to find their missing sons and daughters. The mothers have since turned into grandmothers, and while the motives have changed over the years, you can be certain to see women marching on Thursday.

Submit To Fotografia

Elena — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 20:08:36 +0000

It has always been a desire of mine to start an online publication. As far back as middle school, I met with some other leotard wearing, grade schoolers and we planned the possibility of starting a zine (the first inclinations of a nerdy future). Zines are small scale print publications usually with an eccentric and unique edge, reflected directly from its contributors and editors. Blogs are similar to zines because most are self-published, personal, and done on a small scale with limited readership (I’m not talking about the Huffington Posts of the web).

Online media has grown dramatically the past couple of years and I have toyed around with starting an online project for some time now. The past couple of weeks I finally put together my project, Fotografia Magazine, an online magazine/ zine/ project that features the work of photographers, giving them a chance to promote themselves and their photography.

Seeing as Gringa Española is focused on travel, photography, and new media, I figured some readers with similar interests would be interested in submitting some of their compelling, travel photography. It is a great way to promote your website and your work. On Fotografia there is always a link back to the photographer’s portfolio or website, driving traffic back to you. Fotografia is a new site, but I hope it will grow quickly!

Anyone who would like to submit their photography are more than welcome to do so. In your submission you must include the following:

Title of work
Place of capture (if applicable)
Link to your website or online portfolio
Year picture was taken

One of the reasons I wanted to start an online magazine is because of the opportunity you get to discover new artists and photographers. One of these photographers is Stephanie Mackenzie whose work you can see at Deka Photography.

Image via: Deka Photography

The New and Glossy People of Blogland

Elena — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 20:32:30 +0000

Have you canceled your magazine subscriptions? Are magazines starting to send you their glossy pages for free? I smell anxiety, but this is no surprise to many people in the publishing world. I seem to rattle on about the subject quite a bit, but as a writer I can’t help but obsess about every article that comes out on the subject.

Yesterday The New York Times featured an article on its front page about The Rising Stars of Gossip Blogs. When people hear gossip writing, many raise their noses in the air, like they once did, or still do, about blogging. But these same haughty nosed people may beg, steal, or borrow to have the type of success some of these gossip bloggers have had. The article’s author Alex Williams comments on the tipping point when bloggers went from people airing their dirty laundry on the web, to people pursuing a real writing career.

The lines between “reporter” and “blogger,” “gossip” and “news” have blurred almost beyond distinction. No longer is blogging something that marginalized editorial wannabes do from home, in a bathrobe, because they haven’t found a “real” job. Blogging now is a career path in its own right, offering visibility, influence and an actual paycheck.

The elusive paycheck, however isn’t what drives many a blogger, especially in this new and shiny blogland where a lot of online magazines and blogs don’t have the money to pay writers for their work. On the other hand, the online landscape is opening up lots of other doors for people to be innovative and create opportunities for themselves. Like a lot of other careers it takes a mix of talent and luck, with the scales tipping to one side more than the other depending on the person.

Although the article focuses on gossip blogs, the same can be said about all types of blogs. Bloggers and blogging sites have changed publishing in ways that makes even The New York Times suffer. Remember when The Times decided that it will start to charge it’s readers? Now they feature on their online frontpage, an article about the very people who have severely cramped traditional media’s style. Isn’t it ironic, in the Alanis Morissette sense of the word, that many of these nontraditional writers/bloggers rise to success without so much as stepping in a newsroom?

Image via: cuttlefish

Galicia Photo Journal

Elena — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 22:26:00 +0000

Weekly Photo: Plaza Mayor Madrid

Elena — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 21:53:32 +0000

The Plaza Mayor is always packed with people wandering around taking pictures or sitting down for a drink. It is as much touristy as it is beautiful, which explains the exorbitant prices for a cafe con leche and tapas, but the Plaza Mayor still merits a visit, just go for tapas elsewhere. We saw many people drinking a bottle of wine underneath the statue of King Phillip III, and while the practice of drinking in public (the botellon) is quite popular, it is still very much illegal, so do so at your own risk.

The Plaza Mayor is the main plaza in Madrid and is situated just a few blocks away from the Puerta del Sol, the busy square that marks the official starting point for Spain’s national roads. The plaza is surrounded by residential buildings with balconies overlooking the plaza. If you look closely to certain buildings, you will see painted façades.

Interested in Madrid hotels, check out Simon Seeks.

Gallego Town Names

Elena — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 11:23:44 +0000

Here are a few of the unusual town names I have come across.

The Girl From Up There
Ella Da Riba

The Girl From Down There
Ella De Baixo
Dogs
Cans
Garlic From Down There
Noallo De Abaixo

And my favorite of them all is….
Pair of Blonds
Par de Rubias

Bit of Advice

Elena — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 18:55:44 +0000

Often times Spaniards put up decorative plates like the one below with little musings about life and love. This one in particular caught my eye. A bit of advice from the wall of a friend of a friend living in a small town in Galicia.

Gallego – Cando te n’amores depois non chores.
Espanol – Cuando te enamores despues no llores.
English – When you fall in love don’t cry about it later.

Markets and Octopus in Galicia

Elena — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 10:46:34 +0000

There are many images and smells in Galicia that bring me back to my summers in Spain as a child. The little things that people see, smell, hear, and taste which combined you can’t find anywhere else. Things like the bunches of chorizos hanging from the ceiling of our pantry or tossed on the side of a truck ready to sell to people shopping the local market. The smell of octopus boiling in large pots, hardening and softening in the burgundy stained water before the vendor pulls one out with a hook. The loud bellow of the delivery man’s horn when he drives thro ugh town each morning to deliver everyone their bread. Even the white powder of the salted cod that needs to soak in water until the salt that once preserved this big fish slowly seeps out so it‘s suitable to eat. These are the things I remember well, the little things that continue each day, when I leave, when I return, and when I leave again.

This past week was the feria do pulpo, and people come around with the same purpose, to buy and eat octopus. Although in the rainy winter when the surrounding towns lack people and the desire to leave ones home, there isn’t much ambiente a very important quality that adds people, movement, and life (vida). This day there were mostly men with salt and pepper hair just above their ears and nowhere else that came to eat pulpo at the local bar with their friends. They talk sports I imagine or something else like their pesky wives, their wine, and the reminiscences of stories when their bodies allowed them much more than mere talk about past adventures.

The pulpeiro let us try the pulpo and it was soft and flavorful having lost all the toughness that it had before cooking. Once cut with sharp scissors you drizzle olive oil on top of the pulpo and then sprinkle some Spanish paprika and rock salt and it’s ready to eat.

These are the things I remember well, the little things that continue each day, when I leave, when I return, and when I leave again.

This past week was the feria do pulpo, and people come around with the same purpose, to buy and eat octopus. Although in the rainy winter when the surrounding towns lack people and the desire to leave ones home, there isn’t much ambiente a very important quality that adds people, movement, and life (vida). This day there were mostly men with salt and pepper hair just above their ears and nowhere else that came to eat pulpo at the local bar with their friends. They talk sports I imagine or something else like their pesky wives, their wine, and the reminiscences of stories when their bodies allowed them much more than mere talk about past adventures.

The pulpeiro let us try the pulpo and it was soft and flavorful having lost all the toughness that it had before cooking. Once cut with sharp scissors you drizzle olive oil on top of the pulpo and then sprinkle some Spanish paprika and rock salt and it’s ready to eat.