{"id":775,"date":"2012-07-15T06:35:32","date_gmt":"2012-07-15T05:35:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/?page_id=775"},"modified":"2020-04-12T06:48:29","modified_gmt":"2020-04-12T05:48:29","slug":"week-27-lug-meeting-in-barcelona","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/?page_id=775","title":{"rendered":"Week 27: LUG meeting in Barcelona"},"content":{"rendered":"

The unquestioned highlight of week 27, accounting for 15 of the 16 pictures, was an international meeting of the Leica Users Group held in Barcelona. “Meeting” may sound too formal; what really happened is that Ted Grant was visiting Barcelona for the first time since covering the Olympics there 20 years ago, and Geoff Hopkinson from Australia was doing the Grand European Tour with his family. So with these two visitors from other continents in town (and our good friend Lluis already living there of course), some of us European LUGgers decided to come to Barcelona as well. The evening I was there, Thursday, I also had the pleasure of meeting Daniel Ridings from Sweden, whom I have met before on several occasions, but it has been a while. So all in all a very worthwhile excuse for a quick flight to Barcelona Thursday afternoon. Sadly, I had to fly back early Friday morning, since my daughter’s high school graduation was on Friday afternoon (no pictures from that, it was a horrible, boring, long ceremony).<\/p>\n

27_1<\/strong>
\nI arrived at Barcelona airport, took a taxi to the centre, checked into my cheap hotel on La Rambla, and immediately set out on my walk to the meeting place. On the way, I passed this banner, with a slogan one sees all over Spain these days, referring to the guilt of the bankers and “the system”:
\n\"L1007875\"<\/p>\n

27_2<\/strong>
\nThis is the Spanish headquarters of the Leica Users Group, Caf\u00c3\u00a9 Zurich located on Plaza de Catalunya at the northern end of La Rambla:
\n\"L1007876\"<\/p>\n

27_3<\/strong>
\nIt was very hot and sticky, even at 8 p.m., and people tried to get a rest wherever they could sit down:
\n\"L1007877\"<\/p>\n

27_4<\/strong>
\nAt the bar in Caf\u00c3\u00a9 Zurich:
\n\"L1007889\"<\/p>\n

27_5<\/strong>
\nFinally, at our table in Caf\u00c3\u00a9 Zurich, Ted Grant, the greatest Canadian photo journalist, in action with his Noctilux (of course!):
\n\"L1007887\"<\/p>\n

27_6<\/strong>
\nAfter a drink at Caf\u00c3\u00a9 Zurich, we moved on a traditional Catalan restaurant, El Julivert Meu, selected by our host Lluis. I meant to take a picture of Daniel Ridings, but somehow my focus slipped…:
\n\"L1007893\"<\/p>\n

27_7<\/strong>
\nTed poses with Geoff’s lovely daughter Nicole. She is very sweet and patient–what 18-year old would actually enjoy spending the evening with a bunch of old farts like us?:
\n\"L1007891\"<\/p>\n

27_8<\/strong>
\nTed explains the finer points of the “keep it simple, stupid” principle to Nicole:
\n\"L1007895\"<\/p>\n

27_9<\/strong>
\nNicole has decided that she likes her Dad’s M9. Daniel looks on to make sure the settings are correct:
\n\"L1007899\"<\/p>\n

27_10<\/strong>
\n“Just one more!”:
\n\"L1007897\"<\/p>\n

27_11<\/strong>
\nAfter the dinner, a traditional bottle of Catalan sweet wine was passed around. Geoff demonstrates the correct technique. You are supposed to drink without allowing your lips to touch the vessel:
\n\"L1007900\"<\/p>\n

27_12<\/strong>
\nThe bottle passes to Daniel, who takes his precautions:
\n\"L1007901\"<\/p>\n

27_13<\/strong>
\nLluis signs his recent Paris book for me:
\n\"L1007903\"<\/p>\n

27_14<\/strong>
\nTed and Lluis chat while we are walking to the apartment-hotel where Ted and the Hoppies were staying:
\n\"L1007906\"<\/p>\n

27_15<\/strong>
\nTed in his temporary office, picking a print to give me. It was Ted’s famous image of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau sliding down the banister:
\n\"L1007908\"<\/p>\n

27_16<\/strong>
\nFriday morning I got up very early to catch my flight back to Alicante. Before starting the preparations for the graduation ordeal, I took my dog for a walk. One the way we passed “our” cats. The orange one in the foreground is not scared at all (the picture was taken with the equivalent of a 35mm lens and is uncropped):
\n\"DSF0611\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The unquestioned highlight of week 27, accounting for 15 of the 16 pictures, was an international meeting of the Leica Users Group held in Barcelona. “Meeting” may sound too formal; what really happened is that Ted Grant was visiting Barcelona for the first time since covering the Olympics there 20 years ago, and Geoff Hopkinson […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":671,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/775"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=775"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/775\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2866,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/775\/revisions\/2866"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}