Sunday, April 19, 2009

Digging through the Archives

Over the past few years I've neglected a lot of my travel photography in favour of getting wedding and portrait galleries together for clients.  Let's face it, travel photography hasn't been paying the bills (not yet at least!). Anyway, I decided to go digging through some of my older images that haven't made it online, and this morning I dusted off some photos featuring bullfighting from southern Spain.  Whether you view the tradition as cultural or cruel is obviously your choice; as Ernest Hemingway once said regarding the sport, "anything capable of arousing passion in its favour will surely raise as much passion against it".  These photos are presented here merely to provide some insight into the presence of bullfighting in Andalucia. From the historic Plaza de Toros of Ronda beloved by Hemingway, to the peeling posters in Malaga offering present-day spectacle for a price, to the clash of colours and controversy on a spring Sunday in Marbella's ring on the Costa del Sol, bullfighting is hard to ignore and easy to get passionate about--whether for or against.

For more on Hemingway's writing about bullfighting, read "Death in the Afternoon".