THE YEAR AT A GLANCE

ZANZIBAR 2002

Once the journalist Huertas Claveria wanted to use a picture of mine for one of his books and told me: "Do you remember in what year you took it?” Huertas had a nice surprise when the next day I told him, not only the year, but also the month in which the photo had been taken. The staff photographer may be neither methodical not tidy. After all, he has an entire organization behind him: archivists, secretaries, accountants… For free-lance photographers order and good organization are crucial.

In 1992 I discovered the Quo Vadis desk-diary. It has a double page with the following header is written: "YEAR-PLANNING" The organization of the year at a glance. Here I wrote down all my jobs, and I keep in a perfect order all my desk-diaries. I assign a colour to each category of work (I have been changing over time): Yellow is pictures and stories for various publications. Blue is for the Photography classes I impart. Green for photography books and pink for institutional assignments. So I can see in just a glance that, for instance, in 1998 I took pictures in Northern Ireland from 21 to April 25 for the Sunday issue of El Periodico. Or that from the 12 to the 19 of July 2002 I was taking pictures in Zanzibar that I published in the La Vanguardia Magazine.

BELFAST 1998

This is how I could easily find the date of the photo that Huertas Claveria asked me for.