Paul Hardy Carter » animals

Monthly Exhibition – February 2012

admin — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 15:24:00 +0000

This year I’m going to try and put a short slideshow, about one or two minutes long, on my blog once a month. The idea is it’ll be like a regularly changing exhibition.

Each month there’ll be a different subject and I hope it’ll encourage me to go through my archive and fish out some pictures that have languished for too long in the dark caverns of my studio.

If you can’t see the movie below click here to see a wmv version

[See post to watch QuickTime movie]

The first such spectacular uses pictures from my Bous al Carrer project. I hope you enjoy it.

Pictures of the bulls

Paul — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 16:01:27 +0000

I realised hardly anybody has seen these pictures, and this feels like a pretty good home for them – for the time being, at any rate. Hope you enjoy.

The pictures were taken in eastern Spain in over the last two summers where, in an echo of ancient festivals, cows and bulls form an integral part of summer celebrations in the towns and villages. Bulls run through streets in the hot afternoon sun – and in the middle of the night – calves chase children around the village square, and young men can live their torero dreams.

This is not the corrida, with it’s formalised structure and celebrity matadors. The aim is not to kill or maim the animals – indeed inflicting any harm on the beasts is condemed. These are fiestas organised and enjoyed by the people.

If you let it play to the end of the bulls gallery, you’ll get some more pictures.

San Antoni Abad

Paul — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 17:59:18 +0000

I’m used to St Francis being the patron saint of animals, but around here it’s St Antony. For the last two days most towns have been carrying out blessings of animals. The animals in question are largely pets, dogs being the most frequent recipients of the scared sprinkle, but all manner of little critters are offered up.
Yesterday I was in Alcoy and this morning in Benissa taking pictures. Horse, rabbit, donkey, tortoise, budgerigar, cat, you name it – I’ve knelt or trodden in just about every type of excrement imaginable in the last two days.
I’m hoping the resulting pictures will become part of an ongoing project, or perhaps ‘theme’ would be a better way of putting it, about the relationship between people and animals.