Barcelona is a beautiful city.

Back in January of this year, I spent three days walking around with my sole focusing being to take quality photos and take in as much sunlight before I had to go back to the gloom and rain back in the UK.

My aim for my setup was for it to be simple and light. I didn’t want to bring multiple cameras and a tripod, I just wanted my camera and a versatile lens. So I brought my Panasonic G80 (or G85 depending where you live) and the Panasonic Lumix 12-35mm lens which gave me a full frame focal length of 24-70mm.

I think this setup is perfect for travel photography as it’s not only light but it allows me to use all the necessary focal lengths I need in order to engage with what I find around the city.

For example when I visited the Sagrada Família or shot any tall buildings, I utilised wider focal lengths like the 24mm or 28mm equivalent in order to get as much of the building in frame as I possibly could but when focusing on what was happening on the streets, I would use either the 50mm or 70mm focal equivalent.

I’ll be honest, I was a bit worried about how people would respond to me taking photos as although I’ve never had a bad experience with street photography in London, I had to keep in mind that I was now in a foreign country with no understanding of the language being spoken. Thankfully, I had no issues and if I’m being honest, not being able to understand what people were saying around me made it a lot easier for me to focus on my work.

It also meant that I had no idea why there were people protesting on one of the days I went to grab lunch. Turns out the Catalonians have been protesting for independence for a few years and I was lucky enough to witness it first hand.

To see so much passion and emotion all around me from people of all kinds of ages was so interesting to watch…

I would highly recommend anyone who’s passionate about travel photography to visit Barcelona as although I was only there for a few days, I still had a great experience and wish I stayed for longer.

I would recommend bringing a light and versatile rig such as my Panasonic G85 paired with the 12-35mm lens as the last thing you want to be doing is bringing your entire photography kit collection to a different country only to lose it all in some freak accident… A zoom lens of any focal length is in my opinion, perfect for any travel photography you do whether it’s on the streets or on the beach.

The last thing I would recommend taking with you would be a disposable camera such as the Kodak FunSaver. The shots I got off this small £20 camera were some of my favourites from the entire trip and it’s motivated me to invest more time into film in general.

My advice to you would be to put Barcelona on your list of places to visit if you haven’t already and make some memories the moment you land in the city of Barcelona.