Throughout his life, Baylón sought, in his own words, to ‘transcribe reality in a natural way. Without composing or modifying the scene. […] Photographing people as they are, as they present themselves to the world, and not as the photographer would like them to be.’

At the age of 26, his father gave him a Rolleiflex camera, which he never put down and with which he attempted to capture people’s souls. He captured children, beggars, prostitutes and marginalised people in candid moments. Stray dogs and cats, street musicians, fleeting lovers—nothing escaped his keen eye. His friend Quico Rivas described the ‘Baylón recipe’ as a mixture of ‘great sincerity, a little cunning, a certain boldness and excellent reflexes.’

This book, the Madrid-based photographer’s, reveals his world through a selection of black-and-white images taken between 1982 and 2014 in various Spanish cities (mainly Madrid, but also Barcelona, Benidorm, Murcia, Valencia and Zamora). The texts by novelist Andrés Barba and photographer Bernard Plossu, both close friends of Luis Baylón, each provide a sensitive account of their former colleague’s approach and unique perspective.

By capturing the essence of the Spanish people, Luis Baylón’s work fits perfectly into the famous Delpire collection, which includes Robert Frank’s The Americans(1958), Bruno Barbey’s The Italians (2022) and Henri Cartier-Bresson and Martin Parr’s The English (2023).