Indian colorfulness in Barcelona: the Holi Festival production by Eloisa Ramos

Westend61 Art Director Giorgio Fochesato spent another week in Barcelona. If you read our blog once in a while, you know the Italian has a soft spot for the Catalan metropolis and the local photographers. Together they always surge for new exciting motifs and productions. Once more he teamed up with Eloisa Ramos who we recently introduced right here on Bilderheimat. On paper, the planned shooting included tons of fun, at least for the models as the Indian Holi-Festival tradition inspired the production.

Just in case you have never heard of it: the Holi Festival is an Indian tradition at the beginning of Spring usually held at the first full moon of the month Phalgun (February/March according to our calendar) and it’s an extreme colorful happening. The „Festival of Colors“ lasts between two and ten days according to the different areas. In its core, the festival is about the annulment of any caste, gender, age and social status that separate people from each other.

The beautiful hedonistic goal: celebrate together with high spirits. These image pop right into our heads when we hear the word Holi: colorful hair, faces, and clothes. Traditionally the attendants throw colored water and powder (Gulal) at each other. Words that usually make every photographer wanting to hide their expensive equipment.

Positive messages, sunlight and active models

According to the positive message of the Holi Festival, the whole production team went to work with good energy and without any fear of damaging cameras and co. We find strong references to the spirit of the oldest Indian Festival in the pictures Eloisa took, especially in the compositions of man and woman. She delivers strong impressions full of equality, togetherness, and love. The reveling models support the messages perfectly as they visibly enjoyed the production. A little star was born on set as the son of our photographer Valentina Barreto brought his talents to the production. Giorgio predicts a successful career in modeling.

The active Barcelona community came through once again with this production as another usual suspect, Gemma Ferrando, helped with the location scouting. In Barcelona, you stick together. Together with her husband Gemma discovered the fairytale-like forest that served as the perfect location for this colorful production. It was probably no coincidence that the circumstances were ideal at the shooting day as the sun was smiling on the models and the production team. Altogether we have another series of beautiful images that enlightens the days of our creative department.

Sebastian Bentzin

For over ten years Sebastian works in the digital media field. The Hamburg-based social media manager combines his professional background with his interest in photography contributing to the Westend61 outlets.