Montseny blown ice water

Story on how I got to Montseny park at Cataluña Spain, where I took impressive images of blown ice water.

It was a Saturday, I was flying to Barcelona, and from the altitude I could only see a vast blanket of clouds. The weather report said: Rain in the Cataluña region…

Although I was discouraged by the bad weather, I prepared myself to visit new places. Always rain brings interesting outcomes, during and afterwards.

I had a new meeting for the Postal Office and this time it was in Spain. As it was announced well in advance, I was able to organize an outing during the weekend prior to the event. My friend Felipe, the photographer who convinced me to enter the Medium Format cameras arena, was living at Barcelona and had not seen him for many years since he left Bolivia.

Co0712–05_2 — Montseny — Cataluña — Spain ++ Melted ice on a branch

I had called him a couple of days earlier to organize a trip where we could take photographs of Water. Had no idea of what he had planned, we only agreed to meet at El Prat Airport which today is named Aeropuerto Josep Tarradellas Barcelona-El Prat.

It was winter and landed just before sunset. Outside of the luggage pickup found Felipe who still carried his long white beard accompanied by long gray hair.

Co0715–19 — Montseny — Cataluña — Spain ++ Trees and Montseny mountain

We rushed to the car rental area and collected the car, starting the journey towards the North. As I did not know where we were going, did not prepare the rout maps. My friend did not know the exact route, only that it could take about 90 minutes’ drive through a main highway that went to France.

We had to exit the highway a few times to ask for directions, thinking that we had passed the correct exit, as the name of the town we were going did not appear on any of the highway signs and more than 90 minutes had passed, apparently, I was driving slower due to the storm.

Co0715–03 — Montseny — Cataluña — Spain ++ Frosted trees with ice water

We finally arrived at the small town of Cardedeu and started looking for a place to stay and have dinner. It was still raining and difficult to find both places.

I was looking to dine a good traditional meat dish, however I forgot that Felipe was vegetarian. Finding this place was much more difficult, and soon most of the restaurants would be closed. We finally settled at the first place we stopped, that was adjacent to our lodge, which I did not like its appearance. Anyway, food was good, and the cook was able to prepare a vegetarian dish for my friend. Now a days, most restaurants do have vegetarian dishes on their menu listing.

Sunday 7AM came along; the clouds had made us the honor to disappear, so we had good sun light.

Co0716–08 -Montseny — Cataluña — Spain ++ Frosted trees with ice water

We rushed up the mountain to the Montseny park. Again had no idea where to go, so we stopped at an opening that had a parking area. From the distance you could see white painted trees contrasted with the intense blue sky. By 8:30AM we were with our cameras taking photographs. I was using my old Rollei 6006 and Felipe had the latest model 6008 as well as the new lenses that Rollei had developed.

There was a small creek where I started taking pictures, but soon discovered that the rain of the previous night had frozen sideways on the branches creating spectacular forms, switching my focus on to them.

0715–16_2 — Montseny — Cataluña — Spain ++ Frosted trees with ice water

Half an hour later, the parking area was filled with most of the hikers that climbed the Montseny mountain. They watched with curiosity these two photographers with large cameras that were taking photographs of tree branches.

We continued driving and looking for other subjects to photograph, by midday, the sun melted all the ice, and the white beauty disappeared.

On the other side of the mountain we found an old monastery dated from the XI century that was reconstructed as Sant Marçal Del Montseny Lodge. I would return to this place with my wife in 2008 when we travelled to Barcelona to launch the book “Del Agua”, where poems of Chilean poet Gonzalo Rojas were combined with my photography.

0712–17/1 — Montseny — Cataluña — Spain ++ Frosted trees with ice water on a solarized image

All the closeup images came out quite good, even not having a macro lens, being the first image I show on this blog was displayed at the Museo Agbar on a size of 360 x 120 cm (142 x 47 in).

We returned to Barcelona late afternoon driving around the Montseny mountain finding many “Masías” (rural housings) that were refurbished as summer houses.

Although I am still in contact with my friend, haven’t seen him since this outing, as the last time I went to Barcelona he was travelling.

Rollei 6008

Co0712–05
Lens Tele-Xenar 180mm + Sky filter
120 Velvia RVP 50 ASA film
1/60 at 4.0
GPS 41.780689, 2.451389

0712–17/1
Lens Tele-Xenar 180mm + Sky filter
120 Velvia RVP 50 ASA film
1/60 at 5.6
GPS 41.780556, 2.450919

Rollei 6006

Co0715–03
Lens Sonnar 150mm + Sky filter
120 Velvia RVP 50 ASA film
1/125 at 11.0
GPS 41.780556, 2.450919

Co0715–19
Lens Sonnar 150mm + Sky filter
120 Velvia RVP 50 ASA film
1/500 at 4.0
GPS 41.780556, 2.450919

Co0716–08
Lens Sonnar 150mm + Sky filter
120 Velvia RVP 50 ASA film
1/250 at 5.6
GPS 41.780556, 2.450919

0716–15_2
Lens Sonnar 150mm + Sky filter
120 Velvia RVP 50 ASA film
1/250 at 4.0
GPS 41.780556, 2.450919