Memories of Galicia

I went to see a flat this evening. Actually it was the second time I'd been to see it as the first time nobody had been there. The area is incredible. There's a Japanese restaurant around the corner where the Nagoyan family who owns it have an entire section in the menu for okonomiyaki and the only people in there were Japanese. There's a Spanish restaurant across the street where the owner is Galician and there's both pulpo and caldo Gallego on the menu, there are local grocers aplenty, and there's a Creole restaurant around the corner where the owner from Martinique told me about the mouth-watering things on the menu that combined mango, fish, spices and exotic vegetables in the most incredible sounding ways. This is my kind of area! In addition, the fact that it's on the same subway line as my gym and the institute makes it really special. Unfortunately the house was not, and I'm going to have to keep looking, but at least I know have an idea of my ideal area, even if it is one of the most sought after in the city.

Anyway, coming out of the Galician restaurant, where I'd spent a while chatting to the owner about the wines, I was reminded of a photo I'd been editing for a while, from my first summer in Galicia when I went with a couple of friends up to the Costa de Muerte. On the way we passed an abandoned boat and I got some shots of it. I wanted to play a bit with this photo because the contrasts between the background and the boat are not that strong, so I've needed to do quite a bit of work to get it to this stage. After a dozen or so masked adjustment layers I'm getting happier with the results, and this sort of exercise is definitely something I should be trying more. When you stare at a photo for a couple of hours it becomes very difficult to be at all objective about it, but this is a part of the art that I need to work on.

So, re. the housing situation it's looking pretty bleak still, but I have a couple more flats to see this week and I'm still holding out hope.