Photography in Olot

It is the only town in Catalonia that sits inside a natural park, the Garrotxa Volcanic Zone, and it has four volcanoes within the town itself: Montsacopa, Montolivet, Garrinada and Bisaroques. A few minutes away is the Fageda d'en Jordà, a beech wood growing on a lava flow from the Croscat volcano. It is a green, ever-changing landscape that turns ochre in autumn, giving a local brand a backdrop nobody could mistake. Visual tradition runs deep here: in the late 19th century, Joaquim Vayreda championed the Olot school of landscape painting.

The economy, though, happens indoors: food production, a textile heritage, religious-statue and craft workshops, and a well-established town-centre retail scene. For these firms, the photo that sells is the process: hands, raw materials, machines running, the person behind each product. When we shoot a plant or a workshop we bring our own lighting, because production spaces are often dark or lit by fluorescent tubes that tint skin and products.