Corpus Christi Flower Carpets on Tenerife 2010: The Final Touches

On a blisteringly hot day on the eve of the Corpus Christi celebrations in La Orotava on Tenerife, a handful of alfombristas (master carpet makers) put the finishing touches to this year’s tapestry made from the sands and soil from Teide National Park. Here are a couple of shots to give you a preview of the almost completed work of art.

The theme this year is The Last Supper and the three main designs feature traditional religious imagery with a Dali influence in the centrepiece. As always the detail in the images is breathtaking, with clever little transparent touches – look at the detail even in the bricks behind the figures.

The overall carpet is livened up this year by the presence of butterflies of varying sizes fluttering around the edges of the giant sand picture.

Once again these maestros of sand art have come up with a masterpiece.

Corpus Christi Flower Carpets of Tenerife part 2 – Say it With Flowers

It was another stunning day in La Orotava and the flower carpets as always added a sea of vibrant colours to the already ridiculously picturesque old streets. But although the carpets were sensational, there were other things which caught my eye this year. Images and scenes which brought home to me the real essence of La Orotava’s rainbow coloured celebrations – the first was the sight of four toddlers sitting on the ground picking petals from  flowers.

Child Labour in La Orotava

The carpets are clearly the magnet for the thousands of people who visit La Orotava, but having photographed the carpets over the last few years, I was looking to try to take some different shots, so this year I focussed more on the people creating the flower carpets.

"No...it definitely goes there!"

I find them incredible to watch; each family member’s role is clearly defined from the most mundane snipping petals from flower heads to the careful placing of each individual flower to create evocative images. The younger kids are entrusted to carry bags of sacks, a bit of petal pulling and some laying the grass seeds in the less detailed sections…watched closely by the supervising abuelo who barks stern words when they get over enthusiastic. There are even individual carpets created solely by children. It really is an all round family affair which ensures that the tradition will be carried on ad infinitum.

A message of world solidarity...even if the Chinese person has an odd shaped head

The family atmosphere even extends to visitors and although by midday La Orotava is buzzing with people, the chances are that if you’re a resident of any nationality, you’ll bump into someone you know.  At various points we bumped into Colin Kirby (admittedly there aren’t many people with blond hair wearing a CD Tenerife shirt, so Colin’s hard to miss), Phil Crean (composing a photograph with a patience I just don’t possess) and our friend, Jose, who we hadn’t seen since last year’s carpets.
As Colin mentioned in his blog, an attempt to ‘storm the tower’ to get some aerial shots was thwarted. But at least we weren’t physically rebuffed like some overly keen young local lads who also tried to rush the entrance to the Iglesia de la Concepción’s tower.
Thanks to Jose, I did manage to get halfway up the tower at one point and snapped a few quick shots before being shepherded back to ground level by a trainee jobsworth. To be fair, I understood his reluctance to let just anyone up on to the roof. It’s not designed for spectators and somebody falling with a splat on a flower carpet might have been spectacular, but would probably have ruined the day.

From a Room with a View

To get the full sense of what is going on a few circuits are required to see the streets being transformed from being full of crates of exquisitely coloured petals and grass seeds into an open air gallery for floral masterpieces.

The heat of a June day combined with La Orotava’s muscle testing slopes can make it a test of stamina, but the rewards are always worth the effort and anyway a rest stop at a Guachinche every so often rejuvenates. One of the things I noticed was that carpets retain a similar theme each year. Some alfombristas stick to traditional designs or religious imagery whilst others use more contemporary designs which need a bit of contemplation to figure out. Thankfully Jose provided priceless information when we were stumped. I just couldn’t make out what one carpet was at all until he pointed out it was a fallen angel.

Here's Angel...but where's Buffy?

As the day progressed, the town became a little less manic and ironically by the time many of the carpets are having their last petals placed, between 4 and 5pm, the streets were relatively quiet. It’s a good time for photographs, but we were shattered. I knew that I really should complete another circuit; that the best shots lay out there waiting for me.
“Home?” Andy suggested.
“Absolutely.” I answered without hesitation. At least for us it’s only a five minute drive.
We strolled past the church again and headed down hill. A little kiosk beside the church was buzzing with some of the alfombristas who, now that their work was done, were enjoying the late afternoon sunshine with a caña in their hands. It looked inviting.
“Cerveza?” Andy suggested.
“Absolutely,” I replied without hesitation.

That’s the problem with this colourful family affair; it’s very difficult to drag yourself away from it.

Click here to see a slideshow of the La Orotava Corpus Christi Carpets

La Orotava, Corpus Christi on Tenerife 2009 – Part 1

An evocative image made from sand and soil

I always like to take a trip up the hill to La Orotava the day before the main Corpus Christi celebrations to watch the alfombristas (carpet makers) put the finishing touches to the main sand tapestry outside the Ayuntamiento (Town Hall).

The weather hasn’t been kind to the alfombristas this year. An unseasonable heavy downpour of rain a couple of days ago must have caused a few squeaky bum moments, but a sloping canopy saved the wonderful work of art. An alfombrista told me it’s actually the idea of wind that…errr puts the wind up them, so not the disaster it could have been.

This years offering is quite magnificent, as good as that of two years ago and the centrepiece is an incredibly vibrant image despite being created solely from volcanic soil. Don’t take my word for it, here’s a preview of the near finished masterpiece which will be unveiled in all its glory tomorrow.

The Centrepiece of the Sand Tapestry 2009

Have a look at more images here.

Photographing Tenerife – It might be big, but do you know how to use it?

There are two types of people who generally contrive to try to ruin my photographs at fiestas and processions on Tenerife.

The first of these is the ‘press’ photographer. This is the guy with the humongous sized camera which is usually held like an UZI machine gun. He’s also got bags diagonally strewn across his body bandolier fashion and he might even be chewing gum. You just know he thinks that he’s the Rambo of the photographic world.

In his world he’s the only person photographing the event and he patrols the lines getting in the way of everyone else who’s trying to take a photograph.  Despite having a camera lens which is big enough to lay across a ravine in the absence of a fallen tree trunk, he needs to go right up to the face of the person he’s taking the photograph of (possibly a ploy to ruin other’s photographs).
Most of the time he doesn’t actually take any photographs, he just gets in other people’s way; in short he’s an inconsiderate prat. There are always one or two of these types at every event.

Attention seeking behaviour or what?

The other is the amateur who’s left their brain at home. There were a handful of these at the Semana Santa procession last week. These forget that not all events they are watching have been put on for the benefit of tourists. One woman kept wandering into the path of different groups participating in the procession, at one point crossing in front of a brotherhood, causing them to divert around her, to take a photograph of a dog dancing on it’s hind legs (attention seeking little bugger – I also took a photo, albeit from a distance).
Another chubby, effeminate little man stood in the centre of the route with his compact digi-camera poised as rows of hooded marchers passed by him on either side.  He was clearly deluded and believed he was a TV presenter. Every so often he stopped one of them to ask questions. He was really getting on my nerves and I didn’t want every shot to include his flabby frame, so I particularly relished the moment one of the less obliging hoodies bore down on him menacingly and told him to get out of the way.

The worst offenders in this category were a couple from a nation which is infamous for its lack of sartorial elegance. These two were seriously offensively dressed. I’m sure they thought they were trendy, but in truth looked like children’s TV presenters from the seventies; lots of different primary colours, spots and stripes and the dreaded bandanas. They were about twenty yards downwind of me and every time I lined up a shot, a bright spotty abhorrence crept into the edge of the picture. If I moved a foot to the right so did they.
In the fantasy world which exists in my head (the one where I have the bottle to do and say what I really feel), I went up to them and said:

“Piece of advice; if you’re going to go out in public, check the mirror first. There are people here taking photographs for God’s sake.”

Instead, I merely gritted my teeth and moved another foot to the right, no doubt getting in the way of somebody else who at this moment is probably writing a blog moaning about me.

The Silent City – Semana Santa in La Laguna

Plenty of cloak, but no daggers

The city was unusually quiet. Despite the fact that one of the most visually striking processions on Tenerife was due to take place within the hour, the streets were almost deserted. The thought crossed our minds: “Have we got the dates wrong?”

As it happened to be Good Friday, or Viernes Santo as it’s called here, and we were in the ecclesiastical capital of Tenerife, La Laguna, it seemed highly unlikely that we were in the wrong place or possibly even the right place but at the wrong time to witness the most evocative religious processions on Tenerife’s fiesta calendar. But the eerily quiet streets did plant a seed of doubt.
Last year we watched the ‘Silent Procession’ on a bitterly cold night when the wind howled through the city’s perfectly preserved old streets. This year we’d opted to watch the ‘Magna Procession’ for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it takes place at 17.00, so it’s better for photography. Secondly, because it takes place in the afternoon we thought it would have been substantially warmer than La Laguna by night.

Boy did we get that one wrong. Despite there being intermittent breaks in the clouds allowing the sun to occasionally shine through, once again an icy wind was patrolling La Laguna’s old quarter.

As we criss-crossed the streets heading toward the Iglesia de la Concepción I was reminded of the explorer Sir Richard Burton. Nearly 150 years previously he had commented on La Laguna’s streets being devoid of life except for house leeks growing from roof tiles. He had put it down to an outbreak of yellow fever; however I’m not sure he would have noticed much difference today. The house leeks are still there, but this time the Laguneros had probably deserted the city for the beaches of the south.

Just as we were seriously starting to wonder if we really had got the time wrong, a cloaked figure appeared from a side street, his robes billowing in the breeze as he rushed past. We turned a corner and were further reassured to see people lining the streets. There didn’t seem to be as many spectators as in previous years, but that was a plus in terms of finding a good spot for taking photographs. Unfortunately the ‘sunny’ side of the street was facing into the sun, so I chose to stay shivering in the shadowy side of the street for the sake of getting better shots.

At 17.00 on the dot, the iglesia’s bells rang out and the hooded brotherhoods began their solemn parade through the streets. I’m not religious, but there’s something about this particular parade which touches me deeply. I don’t know if it’s the mixed emotions I feel at the sight of the costumes, or the fact that it takes place in deathly silence apart from the sound of chains dragging along the ground and the occasional haunting accompaniment of the sound of Spanish trumpets and a rhythmic drumbeat that conjures up the notion that I’m at a public execution which I suppose in a way, I am.

Some brotherhoods drag full sized wooden crosses

As legions of devout worshippers in pointed hoods filed past I have to admit to a feeling of unease. Through the camera’s eyepiece I seemed to be continually meeting anonymous eyes staring back and, silly though it sounds, it unnerved me. Possibly because I felt as though I was intruding in something that, although it takes place in public, is something very personal.

The youngest members of some of the brotherhoods must only be about three or four years old and yet they already seemed to understand the importance of the day; their expressions matching those of their elders. For the duration of the procession, they neither whinged, nor made a sound. They’d already been indoctrinated into the island’s traditions and will no doubt do the same with their own children when the time comes. It’s hard not to be moved by the overwhelming feeling of family and community that is represented by these age old ceremonies.

The appearance of possibly the most striking image in the procession, barefooted monks whose ankles are shackled together marked the end of the ‘Magna Procession’.

As always it was a remarkable sight to witness and yet it is still one that many visitors completely overlook.