I just got my imaginary photos back from northern Spain where I was showing an artwork of mine in Bilbao (the “Brakelights” one).   I’ve given up on snapshots when I travel, so here are 9 photographs that do not exist, all 4x6, on a role of imaginary kodachrome.

1.  On a layover in Madrid, I stop in the shade of Parque del Retiro.  A hippie girl selling sad, wilted carnations approaches me and asks for a donation for flamenco dance.  I open the change pocket in my wallet and she takes out a dime, insisting that 10 cents is all she wants.  In exchange, she snaps this photo, an ornate fountain behind me.  An hour later, I realize that in that moment she has stolen $140 out of my wallet.  In the photo, I’m smiling like a big, stupid, American tourist.

2.  My art on my computer, and my computer in my backpack, I walk the narrow old streets towards the Guggenheim.  I turn a corner and catch my first glimpse of the museum.  The morning light crackles off the swooping polished metal and I snap this photo.  Framed vertically, the street is dark and the museum is washed out.  A bad photo, but it helps me remember the moment regardless.

3.  I'm standing at the podium in the Palacio de Euskalduna.  The audience is international, and in a booth to my left are three translators while the crowd listens on headphones.  I think about how some people watch my lips move but hear an elderly french woman.  In the front row, a man has his headphones turned up loud and I notice that when I lean forward and raise my voice, I can hear myself shouting in Spanish.  I find this weird language feedback more interesting than what I am saying and lose my place as the flash goes off.  In the photo, I'm sweating.

4.  Another stone Jesus, this one on Monte Urgillo, above San Sebastian.  His back is to the ocean, his arms over the city.

5.  From the balcony in my hostel in Casco Viejo, a small patch of sunday morning sunlight has found its way to the freshly washed stone streets and bounces off the stucco walls of the old buildings.  From a bar below, I hear “California Dreamin”, a song that has followed me to yet another continent.  The streets are narrow and dark, and my flash goes off.  I wanted to capture the music, and it’s a pretty picture, but silent.

6.  Esteban, in the plaza, just kissed. A flock of birds sweep from the cathedral out of focus behind him.

7. Anti-American graffiti on the wall of a 14th century monastery.  I can’t read it, but the red paint holds the anger of the time and reminds me of my shrinking world.  The photo is dark, in the corner of the frame someone is watching me take it.

8. Outside the new media exhibit hall, a group of us stand together for a photo—a weird mix of new friends…a young Austrian scientist, a German media artist, an Oz festival head, a Portueguese dancer, a British philosopher.  It’s 3:30am, we’re drunk, and the camera was on the railing in front of us.  The timer goes off just as one of the new media light artworks flashes behind us…it silhouettes us, our faces lost.

9.  I’m leaning against the window of the train as it winds through the jagged Basque mountains towards San Sebastian.  Outside in the rain, a beautiful boy rides his bike along side.  A sad old song shuffles into my ipod and, framed perfectly by the window, the boy becomes a sweeping tracking shot for the opening of an imaginary movie in my head.  I add invisible titles on the glass, and pull out my camera to capture the still…one frame of a movie that will never exist.  The autofocus on my camera only shows the streaks of rain across the window and the boy turns into the green hills, his reality leaving my fiction.

Peace.

Scott