"A year in photographs" @ayearinphotographs - Tumblr Blog

"A YEAR IN PHOTOGRAPHS"

Pictures book. 365 days visual essay on photography by Alejandro Mos Riera, (2023)

***

January 310 photographs

February 280 photographs

March 310 photographs

April 300 photographs

May 310 photographs

June 300 photographs

July 310 photographs

August 310 photographs

September 300 photographs

October 310 photographs

November 300 photographs

December 310 photographs

"A year in photographs" created by Alejandro Mos Riera (2024)

#Vimeo

Pictures book. 365 days visual essay on photography by Alejandro Mos Riera. info: https://ayearinphotographs.tumblr.com/

A YEAR IN PHOTOGRAPHS” ¶ Art Film directed by Alejandro Mos Riera (2024)

#Vimeo

2023 will be remembered by many in photographic circles as the year in which Luis Baylón’s Rolleiflex went silent forever. But in keeping with the Buddhist cycle of samsara, this year also marked the rebirth of Alejandro Mos Riera in the realm of photography.

Mos Riera, or Mos for short, is a multidisciplinary artist who was among the first to embrace the technique of digital collage in the 1990s. He is equally versed in electronic music, with ambient being his genre of choice. (It is not irrelevant to recall that photography and music are closely related, as both deal with contrast and rhythm.) Yet photography had never been an obsession for this polymath—a term I have only heard once before to describe someone, namely Sam Shepard—until he decided to embark on this ambitious project you have in front of you called “A Year in Photographs”.

Armed with a pair of Lumix cameras, for 365 days straight Mos went about the business of taking photographs in the disciplined manner of a worker that punches the clock upon entering and leaving the office, not to mention the fact that he kept going on weekends as well. At the end of each photographic foray, Mos would be faced with the daunting task of editing the day’s photos, which usually numbered anywhere between 500 and 700, of which only ten were selected for inclusion. Even though many of these photos were shot on “burst mode”, the ratio of cuts to keepers is 50:1.

With the sheer number of images generated, patterns began to emerge, as did his preferred subject matter: unsuspecting cyclists in motion, the horizon over the sea, groups sprawled out on the grass atop Santa Catalina Hill, trees in silhouette, couples intertwined in embrace or taking selfies of one another...

Over the course of a single year, Mos walked nearly 2,500 kilometers and amassed over a quarter million photographs. The numbers are mind-boggling.

The end result after editing is the monumental 3,650+-page book “A Year in Photographs” and the two-hour film of the same name. (The hauntingly beautiful soundtrack was also scored and performed by Mos.)

The majority of these images were taken in Gijón and its environs. The city is extremely lucky that Mos invested a year of his life to document the everyday doings of its populace from nearly every vantage point possible.

It is curious to note that Balzac published his magnum opus in 17 volumes. Mos now unveils his in 12 (one volume per month). Think of it as your own private La Comédie humaine giving you a glimpse into life in a provincial town tucked away in the northwest corner of Spain: the interplay of light and shadow, street photography in classic B&W, from the panoramic heights of the Campa Torres to close-up shots along the El Muro seafront promenade.

If anyone is thinking about creating a time capsule to show future generations or alien beings what life was like in Gijón at the beginning of the 21st century, they should be sure it is big and sturdy enough to hold a copy of “A Year in Photographs” in print form (3,650+-pages & 6-odd kg.) —“materiality is the stuff of memory”—since digital data is still in the process of being future- proofed.

— Mark John Ostrowski

Page 365 of 365