I’ve been walking around Barcelona for a while, and I need a break.

I sit down and I start thinking about the last 30 days. The first thing that comes to my mind is that the master is done. A big chunk of daily duty is gone, freeing up space for something new. Then my mind wanders to the Yashica MAT 124G that joined my camera roster a few weeks ago.

I start writing about the Yashica and the master, but something feels wrong. The exhibitions! You dumb ass! I’m more and more worried about my memory.

So, exhibitions. I’ve had one photo exhibited at the RAW Photo Fest and a series exhibited at the Centre Civic Barceloneta for the group exhibition “Mirades de la Barceloneta”. Honestly, I was a bit unsure about the series in Barceloneta. It is way different from what I usually frame. At the same time, the concept is strong, and who cares about what I usually do? The same hate I have for labels in real life applies to my photographic outlet as well. It was lovely to see the people looking at my photos, hear their comments, and feel a pinch of pride when someone was taking the phone out to bring a piece of my work with them.

Back to what I was writing before my memory kicked in. The Yashica.

Why a Yashica MAT 124G? Do I really need another film camera? Probably not. But I needed something to force me to slow down, be more mindful, and change the way I look at life through a camera. And the Yashica succeeded in filling all these needs. If you are not familiar with the model, it’s a medium format camera with a waist-level finder. The one where you look down to see the streets (a new way to look at life, checked) and, since it doesn’t have a mirror, the image on the finder moves in the opposite direction you move. More simply, every time I try to frame something, my mind is so confused that I need to stop and focus hard to get the frame I want (aaaand the slow down and be mindful is also checked).

Overall, I’m really happy for this purchase and looking forward to getting more and more comfortable with it. The square format is something different that brings me back to the early years of Instagram. Do you remember that moment in life where you were just posting random things, playing with the filters without the pressure of engaging and creating videos?

As I already mentioned, May was also the month the Master in New Documentary Photography came to an end. It has been a long journey where I had the luck of meeting a lot of amazing people (and photographers) together with a good dose of frustration coming from both moving out of the comfort zone and some friction with the master overall organization.

Thinking back to this time, I’m not sure I’d enroll again in an online master to maintain my freedom of movement. Compared to my last experience studying in Manchester, I’ve really missed the in-person interactions. The exchange of feedback and points of view are supercharged when you are in the same room, and the feeling was that this online master wasn’t designed to make it happen virtually.

What I can say is that the master gave me two things I'll carry forward: the above series now exhibited at the Centre Civic Barceloneta, and an ongoing project about tourism in Barcelona.

Bottom line, I’m happy about what I’ve learned. For all the people I met along the way. For all the experiments I tried. But, if you’d ask me, I'd evaluate if it would be better to invest the money in mentorship programs with photographers you admire; the feedback and guidance might be more tailor-made.

Looking at June, I feel it will be a month of planning. Planning upcoming trips (leaning towards Korea, Japan, and China), new projects, and, maybe, a workshop format to be launched soon.

The laptop’s battery is at 13%; time to add the photos to this edition of Limen and send it out.

Till next month,

— M

PS. I feel lucky having met the amazing human being Mattia twice this month and to have met again Jorge & Cristelle, Eduard, Eduardo and all the RAW society peeps at the festival.