Basque Evening Festival

The oldest pictures in this flash print sale will be from work I did in my beloved Basque country of France and Spain in 1967. One of them, an evening celebration of a Basque festival is seen in the soft light of dusk—the kind of light the French call “the time between dogs and wolves.” Some people are dancing, other are simply watching, some from the shadows. Colored light bulbs glow from above. I’ve never printed this image before and it brings me back to the time so long ago that I tried hard to depict the feeling of that mountainous Basque country with its small villages and warm celebrations. After sundown the challenge always became trying to capture what I saw with color film that was not at that time greatly sensitive and I’d often lose more pictures than I might be successful in getting. A little camera movement on my part or movement by the subject could result in failure. I trained myself to be able to hold a camera very still in order to use very slow shutter speeds. A quarter of a second probably, a half a second maybe, a full second if I was really steady or could prop the camera something. An eighth of a second was usually a given. It was not a matter of using flash because back then I wasn’t able to blend any kind of strobe light with the ambient light in the way I eventually learned how to do with the development of small camera-mounted strobe lights. And I wanted to get the picture that I saw when I felt the same ambiance around me. My goal was always to make a picture I hoped would make the viewer feel as I did when I saw and felt it. Color films were very slow then and I failed often. But not always.

This flash sale print is a 6” x 9” image on a 9” x 11” paper. It is an archival ink jet print on archival watercolor paper. It is signed in graphite pencil on the front border. It is a perfect gift for a young aspiring photographer or for anyone who loves photography. At a price of only $100.00 it is a bargain not to pass up. All prints are shipped via USPS priority mail. Please be advised that all international custom fees apply and is the responsibility of the buyer to determine those charges. Prints are expected to ship 2-3 weeks from order date.