Barcelona is loudest at three in the afternoon and two in the morning. Every other hour is an opportunity. I had been going out before dawn for most of that winter — not with any particular plan, just with a roll of Kodak Gold and the feeling that the city had something to show me if I stopped interrupting it.
Barceloneta beach in the early morning, the W hotel rising in the background
The port is different at this hour. The yachts sit motionless, their hulls reflecting a sky that hasn't decided what colour it wants to be yet. Montjuïc watches from the hill, indifferent. There are no tourists, no joggers, no one. Just the faint knock of rope against metal and the smell of salt and diesel.
Moored yachts in the port of Barcelona
A huge yacht moored in the port, Montjuïc in the background
The city hasn't decided what colour it wants to be yet. That is the window you shoot through.
Passeig Colom, photographed from the Palau de Mar in the early morning
I walked back through the old town as the light was beginning to change. The Correos building was catching the last of the gold, its stone face warm in a way it never is once the day gets going. A delivery van idled at the corner. A woman swept her doorstep. The city was starting, quietly, to become itself again.
The Correos building at dusk, dimly lit and quiet
Barcelona at night — a long exposure, winter 2025
