As part of the collaborative photography project myself and Kelly Bryan are doing together (as mentioned in other blog posts) about our appreciation for doing the Erasmus year and others European views on Brexit; we recently took a day trip to the nearby historical town of Toledo.
This ancient and walled city located in central Spain, only an hour from Madrid via bus, is another place which we are able to travel to for free on our student travel Abono card. Therefore, this is why Kelly and I chose to photograph the place for our project (as well as the other chosen locations) as it is another place we are able to travel to easily and affordably – something which we do not have access to back home. We both really appreciate this feature of the Abono travel card, the fact that we are able to experience and visit many culturally different Spanish towns, cities or villages nearby to Madrid, all of which have their own unique qualities and aesthetics.
Although I actually first visited the World Heritage Site, Toledo, at the beginning of the year back in September for my birthday on the 15th September. Myself and all the girls I live with took a day trip there for my birthday, where we had a beautifully warm day out, wandering around the city observing its stunning views and old architecture; as well as taking a ride on the longest urban zip line in Europe!
After this, we then enjoyed some lovely cocktails at Círculo de Bellas Artesrooftop bar, which is only €3 to get up to if you’re an Erasmus student, if not it’s still only €4! I have returned to this rooftop bar many a time since, often when I have people come and visit me to show them the amazing views of the city from up there!
So, going back to the most recent day trip to Toledo which Kelly and I went on for our photography project, we used this day to photograph what we thought were the most interesting aspects of the place and what we appreciate the most about it in comparison to places we can visit back home. For example, we found the short, unevenly sized and proportioned house rooftops very different to anything we have seen back home. We are photographing this entire project on 35mm colour film so have not yet developed it as we are still in the photographing process, however, we are taking digital backups as we go along so here’s a sneak peak of what we took…
For this documentary project, we are going to many other places some of which we have visited before such as: Cercedilla, several different parks/gardens in Madrid, architecture within Madrid and the area of Lavapies in which we live and some which we have not such as the town of Chinchon. All of which are locations we can get to for free on our travel card. We have also now began contacting a small selection of photography/art galleries and cafes to see if they would be interested in exhibiting our work in the summer time once the project is finished, we have had a few replies but are currently in the midst of following these up. So far, we have contacted the following places: - Bocono café
- Ataca Paca
- La Tabacalera
- La Casa Encendida
So, hopefully we will be able to as exhibiting the work in Madrid is one of our main end goals for the project!