Sant Joan does not need more spectacle. It already has enough.
What interested me was the pressure around it: bodies packed into narrow streets, hands looking for balance, the animal becoming public weather, the crowd pretending it can control what it has summoned.
The horse is not always the subject. Sometimes the subject is the space it removes from everyone else. The bent neck, the raised legs, the hands against the wall, the phone too close, the face half-hidden by heat and noise. The ritual holds because it nearly stops holding. That edge is where these photographs sit.
Ciutadella gives the event a beautiful frame. These photographs do not obey that frame for long. They stay closer to the crush, the sweat, the uniform, the balcony, the interior rooms before the street swallows everything again.
Black and white strips away the festive explanation and leaves weight: skin, stone, cloth, shadow, animal muscle, public fatigue.
This is not a guide to Sant Joan.
It is a first edit from inside the pressure.
Technical note: Sant Joan de Ciutadella, 2026. Black and white street photography. Leica M10 Monochrom / Ricoh GR IV Monochrome · Lightroom Classic.
