Arriving in Barcelona for Revela-T 2017, I had little idea of what to expect. It is an incredibly long 28 hours by plane from Australia. The day after landing we headed out to Vilassar de Dalt early in the morning to hang the photos I was exhibiting at the Cal Garbat. Of course we got lost a little, had questions about paying bus fares, wandered the streets, and were found again. The exhibition space, an old abandoned factory we fell in love with. After meditating on the wall, and making a plan on how to hang my photos, we felt it was time for morning coffee, being still a little on Sydney time. With Melody, my partner’s help, we rapidly installed the exhibit in time for the mid afternoon lunch break: now we were on Barcelona time.

Lunch of course was a celebration in itself, as are most things perhaps in Catalonia. Although in the previous year, I had a photo included in Revela-T as part of the Next Best Thing Pinhole Project and many pinholers attended, it seemed just too far at that time. I had been recovering from heart failure, and always want to make the most of travel with a rigorous pace. Little did I realise that even this time, on returning to Australia blood tests showed that I was a little hypothyroid during these travels again and needed adjustments to my medications. Notwithstanding, no one ever wants to rust away by becoming moribund, so perhaps it is better to burn out a little, seize the day and enjoy the celebration of life, people, places, food, wine and photography.

And Revela-T is not just a photographic exhibition but all of those things, a festival bringing together a community passionately celebrating image making based in chemical processes from film to wet plate, daguerreotypes to instant film, cyanotypes to caffeine development, with lenses and without, from small to large formats and beyond. It is place to share stories, experiences, learn, to discover new friends, catch up with old friends and meet those known from across the internet, to listen to artists talk about their work, to enjoy the town of Vilassar de Dalt with its unique heritage, and perhaps more importantly to enjoy the photographic life that this analog fiesta celebrates.

I feel incredibly grateful to have had some of my photographs chosen to be exhibited at Revela-T, to have been unhidden, discover Catalonia and Spain, and be able to share the passion of those participating me in these images taken with my Olympus-OM2 on colour infrared film.