Bullfighting is controversial.
For some, it’s a violent spectacle best consigned to the past. But for others, it is a way of life, a historically ingrained part of what it is to be Spanish. But it is steadily on the decline.
Owen Harvey wanted to look a little deeper and try to understand the culture of bullfighting and what it means for contemporary matadors. After winning the RPS/Guardian Joan Wakelin bursary, he traveled to Málaga with a producer to spend time photographing students at an escuela taurina, a bullfighting school. There he met young men like Antonio Fernández Torres De Navarra, who talked about the discipline he’d learned and the love he felt for the bull.
These sensitive and beautiful images explore what motivates the current generation to keep this practice alive. Like much of Owen’s work, style, identity and masculinity are key ingredients. In the ornately crafted costumes, the ritual of the fight and the bond between these budding bullfighters and the elders who mentor them, he finds the answers.
This is a story of belonging, family, heritage and pride.
“Everything I’ve worked on before has been familiar in some way. Bullfighting was something I knew nothing about prior to this. But the same elements I’ve always focused on were there.”
Owen HarveyCredits:
Photography – Owen Harvey
Production – Candy Field
Guardian Head of Photography – Fiona Shields
Guardian Picture Editor – Matt Fidler
RPS Magazine Editor – Kathleen Morgan
Awards Manager – Jo Macdonald
Photography Assistant – Dani Gusano
