The photograph 67 shows a man still young, with a dark and bushy beard and staring into the distance. He wears a beret and is seated on the steps at the foot of the portico of a Romanesque church in Pallars Sobirà. Next to the chin stands a staff to testify that the transit through the mountain paths is not easy, that it is often necessary some other support.
The man, still young, rests, makes a stop on the road that will take him later, step after step, to the Val d’Aran and the Ribagorça county in the Lleida Pyrenees. In the photograph 67 it is not seen but the man takes notes of his trip, notes and maps drawn somewhat haphazardly.
with the advance confession that they do not have to be taken at face value. The only answer is good will, he says, and he is right. Goodwill is a sufficient guarantee and even more so if it is hoisted by a man still young and lonely like a wolf lost in the snow.
A legacy that was 12 years in Photograph 67 litigation. His son, Camilo José Conde (on the left of the photo), won his right to the inheritance in 2014 after a long dispute with the writer’s widow, Marina Castaño, now married in new nuptials.
The man in the photograph – you know? – is my father; that man will one day pour his plans and his notes into the manuscript of the book whose title speaks of those mountains. In the book, the man will call himself the traveler, always in the third person, without ever removing the article or adding any tagline to the noun.
Before, in other of his walks through the lands of Jews, Moors and Christians, through the Andalusian leagues, through the entire La Mancha, the man with the beard, the beret and the crook took the title of vagabond. That’s what it looks like in photography, it’s true.
The Wanderer. The cane, the beret and the beard, the eyes that seek the horizon guarantee such a condition. The crook too, close at hand. The vagabond of the Alcarria, of the Guadarrama, of the Sierra de Gredos. From the Pyrenees, right now.
Leon Cooper was born and raised in Vancouver. As a Reporter for WideWorldMag, Leon has contributed to several online publications including Dream House Publications and Granville Magazine. In regards to academics, Leon has got a Post Graduation Degree in Department Of Archaeology from The University Of British Columbia. As a Reporter for WideWorldMag Leon Covers International Topics.