Carlos Saura

When the great fi lmmaker Carlos Saura was a young man, hedesired to create a book about his native Spain that wouldtransgress the propaganda imagery of the Franco regime. Hestrove to depict his country as seen through his camera whenhe set out on a journey through Andalusia and central Spainin his Fiat 600 in the late 1950s. The trip left a deep impressionon his fi rst documentary fi lm, "Cuenca" (1958). Since his youth Saura has been fascinated not only by the process ofphotographing but also by its technology, as demonstrated by his museum-quality collection of hundreds of historical and self-made cameras. Torn between the two media at thebeginning of his career, Saura eventually chose to become afilmmaker but has continued to take photographs.España años 50 offers a comprehensive insight into Saura'sphotography with a focus on his black-and-white work of the1950s: compelling images of landscapes, villages, bullfi ghtsand people of another era. Photographs of Saura's diplomafilm project, "La Tarde de Domingo" (1957), are also present in the book, making it the defi nitive representation of hisphotographic oeuvre.