Last of the Old Europe Northern Spain 1988

In 1998 I was fortunate to have a commission from the Sunday Times Magazine, as part of a series “The Last of The Old Europe”, to work with the writer Norman Lewis on a story about isolated villages in the mountains of northern Spain. Most of my work was centred in the Cantabrian mountains, especially in the National Reserve of Somiedo, just four hour’s drive from the modern, bustling city of Santander. It wouldn’t be a hard drive now, but 33 years ago, travelling on the small mountain tracks was like leaving the 20th century and arriving in medieval Spain. Isolated by the rain-soaked mountains, a small and aging population was maintaining a way of life unchanged for centuries, in hamlets that were the last living vestiges of an ancient rural Europe. To reflect this timeless quality I chose to shoot in black and white and decided to focus on portraits as part of my documentary photojournalism. The work was published at the time in magazines all over the world, and in a book by Café Royal in 2021.