There is an essential difference between taking the picture of a place that we already know and taking a picture of another one that we discover for the first time. Make a portrait of something or someone already known involves to have prepared the shooting before, even just mentally, to have at least imagined the image that we would like to create. The different options are combined beforehand to be predisposed: the technical aspects, the aesthetic ones, the reason to take the picture, the original idea of the meaning we would like to give to the picture, etc. Nevertheless, when we take a picture of a subject that we discover for the first time this process is different, specially when we are just passing through in a place that we know we will never return to. There is a seduction game, like a revelation that indicates us that is this place and not another one that we must take in picture. We have to improvise with the equipment we bring, there is no time to deliberate, to wait the suitable light, to come back when the street will be calmer, or maybe more hectic. In spite of this we take the risk, we take a picture, we try to extract a kind of a “character” of the place, like someone who take a portrait of a person and try to capture an accurate gesture that he finds interesting.
