Night Scenes from Lloret de Mar

Here are a few scenes from Lloret de Mar. One of my favorite things to do is walk around and take photos of night scenes. I guess you could call it a type of street photography.

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Lloret de Mar Night Scenes 3

I like capturing people enjoying themselves in cafes. I also love leading lines, and so I look for people walking down alleyways illuminated with overhead lights.

Lloret de Mar Night Scenes 4

These are all from our first night in Spain after landing in Barcelona. Of course, we were tired after the redeye flight. But, because our body clocks were 6 hours earlier, we felt fine. So we walked along the streets and shops, stopping for dessert and coffee.

Spanish Nights

Nevermind it was the end of summer, it was warm, and the cafes were full of people talking and enjoying themselves. It was a happy experience.

Lloret de Mar Night Scenes 1

Anyway, this type of photography wouldn’t be the same without people in it. I enjoy being in places where people are relaxed and having fun milling about, socializing with friends and family. These photos try to capture some of that.

Lloret de Mar Night Scenes 2

Bo De Gracia

Having only one night, we had to find the best tapas in town. Fortunate for us it was just around the corner. In Barcelona, that’s any corner.

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Bo De Gracia
A view inside on of Barcelona’s best tapas bars

I really don’t think you can go wrong, but Bo De Gracia was especially right if that makes any sense. There were quite a few things we ordered, but I remember sardines and olives the most. My wife doesn’t generally like sardines, but we both had to split the last one. And the fresh green olives have a taste and texture I’ve never experienced in America. It was all washed down with a local Spanish wine that complemented everything perfectly.

more interiors from the gallery

But I’m a photographer, so I had to pick up the camera and take this quick shot from the bar where we sat. The only people here were us and this couple. Probably because it was early in the evening. Around nine or ten is when these places start to fill up. By “these places” I mean the worlds best tapas bars around every corner of Barcelona.

Summer Nights in Barcelona

Here is a street scene from a section of Barcelona that’s not too far from the beach. I took this from a moving pedicab that we hired late one night from La Ramblas to the Hotel Arts. Our driver was a German fellow who biked all over Europe and stayed summers in Barcelona to work the pedicabs.

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Summer Nights in Barcelona
Summer Nights in Barcelona

Taking photos from any kind of moving vehicle at night is a challenge, but with a high enough ISO and a wide aperture it’s doable. And a pedicab is a lot easier to shoot from than a taxicab, although I’ve tried that as well.

more street photography

The days and nights we were in Barcelona were very warm. One of the things I like most about Barcelona is how people spend a lot of time socializing in front of little cafes and bistros. That goes for much of Europe but Barcelona in particular.

Bormuth Tapas Bar

Bormuth Tapas Bar
Bormuth Tapas Bar in the El Born / La Ribera section of Barcelona                     Purchase a gallery print

Bormuth Tapas Bar is located in the El Born / La Ribera section of Barcelona. It’s in a labyrinth of streets and shops. Of all the places I visited in this city, this area was most enjoyable to get lost in. I snapped this shot as I was walking around at night, but later learned from TripAdvisor that it has great ratings. Had I not just left another Tapas bar a few minutes before I would have stopped here for a quick nosh. This area is so fun I could imagine living in Barcelona just to hang out here and talk late into the night, or wander around with my camera.

Tapas is the way to go, a little bit of this, a little bit of that and some good Spanish wine to wash it all down. I’ve noticed a few Tapas bars popping up near my home in Florida lately. If I were to make a prediction I would guess that Tapas will grow in popularity here in North America. It just seems like a reasonable way to eat, kind of like a Spanish version of Dim Sum.

To take this photo I used an ISO of 5000 which is quite high. That and the in-camera image stabilization allows me to capture a night scenes like this that would not have been possible a year ago without a tripod. Capturing images at night is one of my favorite types of photography, the mood is transformed from the stark light of day and somehow it evokes more feelings and imagination, at least for me.

So here I am, lost in a labyrinth, having just had Tapas and wine, and lost in the joy of my favorite type of photography at the same time. What could be better?