"Horses passing below the window"

I didn’t travel with a plan in mind. I chose the place my usual way - I found the city, the neighborhood, and the things I wanted to see. Once you arrive, there’s always something happening. For that it’s sometimes the best to just let the things find us. And they did..

 

I arrived on the first day of the major feria of the year. And lucky me the place I was staying at was right next to it. I first understood that when I heard music and saw horses passing below my window.

I walk a lot when I’m in the new place, so my first steps took me straight there. I kept going back every day - sometimes just for a bit, sometimes for hours, without really meaning to. I always carried my camera and I was asking strangers for portraits.
 

Where I’m from, we don’t really have celebrations that take over a whole week, with people so involved with such passion, dressed for it and living in it. I was drawn in, maybe it was the energy, or the way the streets kept filling and emptying like a tide.

Most of the people I photographed were from the feria— riders, families in Andalusian clothes, people resting in the shade with dust on their shoes. At first I wasn’t trying to document anything, but the portraits kept adding up. At some point it stopped feeling like a handful of chance encounters and started to feel like a memory taking shape.

These are some of the faces I met there. Not a series I planned, just something that formed on its own while I was passing through. It’s strange how often the unplanned parts of a trip become the thing you carry home..