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Art of Carlos Cara  

Digital artist and graphic designer Carlos Cara created some outstanding collage images for the Festival de Cortometrajes (short film festival) a couple of years ago, incorporating the title ‘Once Upon a Time in Almeria. Check out more of his work on his deviantART page.

Once Upon a Time in Almería  

During the 1960s and 1970s, the region of Almeria, Spain, was host to dozens of filmmakers who constructed elaborate movie sets, invoking locations from the American Southwest to Bedouin Arabia. Films shot here include Cleopatra, Lawrence of Arabia, Patton, and Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns starring Clint Eastwood. Film directors sought to manipulate the otherwise uninhabitable landscape in order to create a world more imaginary than real. Four decades later remnants of the old movie sets remain in the desert, providing seemingly tangible evidence of human settlements that never really existed.

Press Coverage: Once Upon a Time in Almeria  

My exhibit of photographs ‘Once Upon a Time in Almeria‘ is open at the Spanish Embassy in Washington, DC, through November 16. We’ve had some great press coverage of the exhibit so far, especially in Spain. I did an interview with the EFE news agency which appeared in several papers, WAMU gave a shout out via Art Beat, and La Voz de Almeria devoted a full page to the opening. Look for more coverage forthcoming from WAMU and other outlets. Upcoming events include: Thursday, October 18, 6:30-9:00PM: Film Program and discussion on landscapes of the spaghetti western Wednesday, November 14, 6:30-8:30PM: […]

Press from Almeria …  

The article is also available online on the La Voz website here.

La Voz Article  

Constellation Theater’s Blood Wedding  

Constellation Theater‘s Blood Wedding opens this weekend at Source theater on 14th Street! The lobby will include a few of my photographs of the Cortijo del Fraile, the site of the real-life tragedy that inspired Lorca’s play. The image above was taken last November, showing the current state of the old cortijo. Lovers are torn apart as two families in rural Spain are intricately bound in an unbreakable cycle of murder and revenge. Experience passion and violence mixed with song and ceremony. Federico García Lorca illuminates our deepest desires with gorgeous poetic imagery and the haunting appearance of a human […]

Aldous Huxley’s Almeria  1 

In mid-October of 1929, Aldous Huxley and his first wife Maria Nys set out on a road trip through Spain in their scarlet two-seated Bugatti. Starting in Barcelona, where Huxley had attended a conference which left him bored and wanting to escape, they went south along the coast through Valencia and Murcia, on to Almeria, then west to Granada, Cadiz, and Seville, before heading north again to Madrid and back to France. The entire trip took abut five weeks. Shortly after returning, Huxley described Spain as “the strangest country in Europe … one of the oddest in the world even.” […]

The Denver Mine  1 

The surviving structures of the Denver mining plant hang precariously off the hillside above the town of Rodalquilar, inside the Cabo de Gata natural park. The buildings still bear black painted letters–”Dorm Block B,” “Guard Block D”–from a movie production almost 30 years ago. The foundations of the separation tanks create enormous circles at the bottom of the hill. Across the plain lies the Mediterranean ocean. The mining industry transformed the landscape of Almeria during the nineteenth century as modern technology allowed for large scale exploitation of iron, lead and other resources. Activity slowed during the Spanish Civil War in […]

La Chanca  

“The perspective of Almeria, viewed from the heights of the Alcazaba, is one of the most beautiful in the world.” Juan Goytisolo, La Chanca Almeria’s Alcazaba, a Moorish castle perched above the city, overlooks the neighborhood of La Chanca. It is a historically impoverished zone made up of small dwellings built into the hillside on the outskirts of the city. The inhabitants painted their homes using whatever ingredients were available, resulting in a multicolored patchwork. Ruins still remain of a nineteenth century lead mining and transport operation that ran down the mountain to the nearby port. La Chanca has long […]

The Final Duel  

Mortimer stands eyeing his Colt Buntline Special on the ground, which has just been shot out of his hand. Indio approaches holding a musical watch. Inside the watch is a picture of Mortimer’s sister, who shot herself while being raped by Indio. The two gunmen stand inside a large circle bounded by a low stone wall at the edge of town. In the background is only desert, a few dry shrubs and distant mountains. Manco approaches, offering his gunbelt and pistol to Mortimer before taking a seat on the low wall. The duel begins. As Indio starts to reach for […]