One tradition I never really get tired of is Sant Joan in Ciutadella, Menorca.
It is supposed to be about horses, riders, music and rituals that have been repeated for generations. And it is. But once you are actually there, squeezed into a street with far too many people, it becomes something else as well.
There is noise everywhere. Horses suddenly rise above the crowd. Someone pushes past you. Someone else is trying not to spill a drink. People shout, wait, sweat, laugh, get tired. For a few seconds everything seems organised, and then it isn’t.
That part interests me more than the ceremony itself.
I have photographed Sant Joan several times, and I rarely find myself looking for the obvious picture. A horse against an old stone building can be beautiful, certainly. But I usually end up looking sideways. At the man pressed against a wall. A hand appearing between bodies. Someone watching instead of celebrating. A face that looks completely exhausted while everybody around it is having the time of their lives.
Those little things are closer to the photography I normally make.
In black and white, Sant Joan also changes. A lot of the colour and spectacle disappears. What remains is sweat, skin, stone, dust, light, horses and people trying to occupy the same small piece of street.
And perhaps that is what I like about it.
The ritual may be centuries old, but the people inside it are still just people. They get distracted. They get tired. They behave strangely. They ruin perfect compositions.
Which, photographically, is usually when things start getting interesting.
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