Photographing Barcelona

I spent a weekend in Barcelona hoping to capture its combination of modernist, art nouveau, and gothic revival architecture on camera. This city really is a dream come true for anyone interested in architecture, art and design, with everything from its parks to its churches doing that little bit extra to make your mouth drop open in awe when you see it for the first time and keep you captivated once the initial surprise wears off.

I didn't get to visit every photo-worthy church, casa and park in the city during my short visit, but I wanted to share some first-hand tips for the places I did manage to photograph! What to photograph, when to photograph it....here's what I discovered!

Park Guell

Modernist architect Antoni Gaudi is Barcelona's pride: when he died after being hit by a tram in 1926, the whole city mourned. Park Guell is just one of his impressive forays into designing recreational spaces, and while the park itself spans a wide area that is free to explore, most visitors head for the smaller ticketed 'Monumental Zone', where all of Gaudi's designs are centred. This small area becomes very crowded during tourist opening hours, with long queues to enter.

The Gaudi House as seen from the viaducts at Park Guell

A lesser-known tip is to visit before ticketed entry hours begin. In the summer, ticketed hours are 9:30am to 7:30pm, meaning that arriving at around 8-8:30am gets you free and less-crowded access to the park! What could be better? All you have to do is show up at the gates and walk right in: ticket-collectors won't appear until the official opening time. If you'd like to pay your way and support the maintenance of the park, be sure to queue up at least half an hour before opening time to avoid long waits!

UPDATE: Park Guell's website may now have addressed this loophole: it seems pre-ticketed times are now reserved for locals. How strongly this is enforced is not yet known!

Sunrise from the terrace at Park Guell

The park is a photographer's dream. Some great spots to photograph are:

-the city as seen from the tiled benches that line the Terrace

-The Gaudi House (and museum) as seen from the arched viaducts

-The satisfying archways of the viaducts

-The tiled ceiling and columns of the Hypostyle Room

-The tiled salamander guarding the main stairs

The viaducts

The Hypostyle Room

La Sagrada Familia

The crowning glory of Gaudi's Barcelona works, this basilica is the must-visit of your photography trip. Construction began in 1882, and it still isn't finished, and the scaffolding and cranes that adorn the top of the building are almost its trademark! Photographing it from the outside is fun: the small park, Placa de Gaudi, beside the basilica has a pond that reflects its facade beautifully. This is a pretty popular spot with selfie-takers, but head to the side rather than directly in front of the cathedral and you can find some quieter spots!

However, the best photos are to be had inside La Sagrada Familia itself. Pre-booking tickets is strongly recommended - especially the one that comes with an audio guide so you can self-pace your visit and spend some time just sitting and admiring the interior. And what an interior! Gaudi designed it to resemble a forest canopy, so the imposing pillars taper into smaller 'branches' near the top, just like trees. Use a wide-angle lens to encompass their vast scale.....

...Or zoom in on the branches of the pillars towards the top.

The stained glass windows flood the space with different coloured lights depending on the time of day: to see rays of green, red, yellow, purple light shining down, choose a morning or afternoon time slot, rather than midday.

An entry ticket also gets you a close-up view of the dramatic exterior from an enclosed area. Shooting from here gives you an imposing view of the Passion of Christ facade and the spires above it.

Casa Battlo

Gaudi is also responsible for designing many of the casas (private houses) in Barcelona in the modernist style, the most famous being Casa Battlo. The interior is playful and surprising, but if you're short on time or cash it's still entirely worth checking out the exterior, covered in pastel-hued tiles. Whatever time you go, it'll be busy, but that won't stop you from taking great obstruction-free photos! Zoom in on the attention-grabbing windows and balconies...

...or photograph the exterior alongside the building next door: the far less busy but equally beautiful Casa Amatller.

Palau de la Musica Catalana

This concert hall is designed in the same Catalan modernist style as Gaudi's works, but was created by Lluis Domenech i Montenar in 1908. If you're not planning on seeing a concert here, the only way to visit it is by guided tour. It will give you an insight into the architectural quirks of the building...and there are plenty!

The star of the show is the concert hall itself. If you're vigilant you can get yourself to the front of the group when you enter the hall about halfway through the tour, giving you a few moments to photograph the symmetrical scene without any bodies! Just make sure you head right for the aisle in the middle for perfectly-centred photos! After the first minute, people really start to spread out along the rows of seats, so the window for obstruction-free photos is finite!!

Then, head around to the side to get a better view of the concert hall's breathtaking, intricate and gravity-defying glass ceiling....

...and point your camera up from the ground-floor stalls to see how the two balconies merge together beautifully.

One final architectural gem is the outdoor balcony, flanked by colourful mosaic pillars. It can get quite crowded here when everyone is standing on it, but be patient and you'll have a chance to photograph it empty before the tour moves on.

Barcelona Cathedral

While it gets less attention than the Catalan modernist buildings, Barcelona Cathedral is still the pride of the Gothic quarter of the city. The most interesting way to photograph it is down one of the long streets leading up to it. The steps leading up to the cathedral tend to get very crowded during the day, so this angle frames the cathedral without needing to go early to beat the crowds!

Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau

This hugely overlooked sight is a standout art nouveau gem. It used to be a hospital, but looks more like a palace, and now it's both a tourist attraction and a workplace. While the people who work there go in through the main entrance, the tourist route takes you first through the tunnels used to get between hospital wards and to quarantine the infectious. You then find yourself in the courtyard, where your audio guide will explain just why this hospital was designed so extravagantly.

One great area to photograph is the main entrance hall, with its pink-tiled vaulted ceiling.

To either side of this hall you will find a windowed corridor just crying out for you to experiment with leading lines.

Finally, climb the nearby staircase to the upper floors and get creative with this unique triangular ceiling - the first I've ever seen! I wedged myself right into the corner of the triangle and used a wide angle lens to get the whole vaulted ceiling in. I was the only one there, luckily: most visitors to Barcelona haven't caught on to this one yet!

El Pont de Bisbe

This bridge spanning a narrow street in the Gothic quarter is as atmospheric as it gets. I was planning to get there early to photograph it crowd-free, but other sights got in the way. I finally made it to the bridge later in the morning to find it fairly busy. Annoying, yes, but in the end there was something so captivating about this tiny bridge that I ended up not minding about the people below it. If you want to find it deserted, you really do need to go early!

I hope that this post has inspired you to visit some of Barcelona's incredible architectural wonders...and photograph them!

Want to venture beyond Barcelona? I strongly recommend a day trip to nearby Girona! Read all about it (and what to photograph, of course!) here.