Published 01 September 2026 | Events

TL;DR: The Centro Andaluz de la Fotografia in Almeria combines a film series exploring photography’s influence on cinema with three guided visits to Antonio Jesus Garcia’s urban photography exhibition.

Film screenings and urban photography

The Centro Andaluz de la Fotografia (CAF) in Almeria is putting the relationship between still images, moving pictures and city life at the centre of its September programme.

The schedule brings together two strands: El arte de la luz, a film cycle organised with the Filmoteca de Andalucia, and three guided visits to Ejercicios urbanos, an exhibition by photographer Antonio Jesus Garcia. Together, they offer visitors different ways to consider how images shape the way places and people are seen.

Four films about light

El arte de la luz examines the close links between photography and cinema through four important films from the history of the medium. Screenings take place at the CAF at 18:00 on the first Tuesday of each month.

The programme opens on Tuesday 1 September with John Ford’s The Grapes of Wrath (1940), photographed by Gregg Toland. The film is widely regarded in the programme as a clear example of how documentary photography influenced American cinema during the 1940s.

The visual approach to Ford’s adaptation of John Steinbeck’s novel drew on the work of Farm Security Administration photographers including Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange. Their images helped shape a film that went on to become a classic of social cinema.

The remaining titles, scheduled over the coming months, are Peeping Tom (1960), Carol (2015) and Godland (2022). The selection focuses attention not only on directors, but also on the cinematographers whose use of light and shadow gives each film much of its visual character.

A shared visual language

The cycle is based on the idea that photography and cinema have a common origin and remain closely connected through their visual language. Juan Maria Rodriguez, director of the Instituto Andaluz del Cine y la Fotografia, has highlighted the historical link between the two disciplines, pointing to Eadweard Muybridge’s chronophotography experiments as a decisive step from photography towards cinema.

From that point onwards, photography and film developed in continuous dialogue. A film can be understood, at its most basic level, as a sequence of photographic frames arranged to create the impression of movement.

That connection is the main thread running through El arte de la luz. The cycle looks at photographers, filmmakers and directors of photography whose work has crossed between the two forms, while also considering the artistic and conceptual influences they have shared over time.

Guided visits to Ejercicios urbanos

The CAF’s September programme also includes three opportunities to explore Ejercicios urbanos with its creator, Antonio Jesus Garcia. The guided visits are scheduled for 3, 17 and 24 September, each at 19:00.

The exhibition forms part of Garcia’s wider street photography project. Its central subject is the human being who inhabits the city, regardless of which city that may be. Rather than focusing only on a particular urban setting, the project uses street photography as an ongoing investigation into people and their relationship with the places around them.

Meeting the author during the visits gives the exhibition a direct link to the ideas behind the work. For visitors interested in photography, the sessions also provide a companion to the film programme: while the screenings examine how cinema builds meaning through light, framing and movement, Ejercicios urbanos turns attention to the single image and the people found within urban space.

September at the CAF

With its film screenings and author-led exhibition visits, the CAF’s September schedule keeps the focus firmly on image-making. The opening film takes place on 1 September at 18:00, followed by the three guided visits on 3, 17 and 24 September at 19:00. The rest of the film cycle continues with one screening on the first Tuesday of each month.

The programme is presented by the Consejeria de Cultura, Patrimonio Historico y Deporte through the Centro Andaluz de la Fotografia, in collaboration with the Filmoteca de Andalucia.

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