Alpujarra, Spain

Posted by Richard Irwin (Belper, United Kingdom) on 18 February 2008 in Lifestyle & Culture.

The following sequence comes from a photostory I made in the village of Yegen in the Alpujarra region of southern Spain. All the images date from the end of 1989 and ran through into 1990, and my last visit to Yegen was in 1991, so I do not know how much has changed in the following years. I picked Yegen as my study after reading the book 'South from Granada', by the English author Gerald Brenan. He described his life in Yegen, and the colourful characters who lived there, many of whom were still alive in 1989, and featured in some of the photo's I took. Back in 1989, this region of Spain was fairly remote from the holiday home buying Northern Europeans, so retained most of its unique culture and ways The terrain is very steep, with desert like ravines at the lower slopes and snow capped peaks above.
This shot is taken looking back up to the village from one of the ravines.

Anyway, here is a selection of scans. All the images were taken using Kodak T-Max film, and scanned this week using an Epson F-3200 film scanner, and edited in Photoshop Elements.

yegen