From Raphael to the Beatles. From Russia to Hollywood. Joana Biarnés always traveled the world with her camera in her hand to portray the hectic 1960s. The journalist Jordi Rovira met her about seven years ago and fell "in love with her personality and her work." Joana Biarnés sprang from that enthusiasm in 2016: one among all, a documentary about the Catalan woman who revolutionized photojournalism. But Rovira had many things left in the pipeline and now he has brought them to light in No serà fàcil (La Campana), a biography full of anecdotes about Biarnés and many of her unforgettable photographs.
"Joana started taking photos thanks to her father, who worked weekends for a sports newspaper. One day she had to go to photograph a recently discovered rock cave and couldn't. So she sent her daughter, who was a teenager at the time He liked what he did and signed her as his assistant," says Rovira. Biarnés and the camera then became inseparable almost for life, but her big break came a few years later when "she met an editor from the Pueblo newspaper on a plane, who thought she was a model; she corrected his mistake: 'I'm a photographer ". There was also signing. On this occasion by Emilio Romero, director of that newspaper.
Thus began a brilliant career in which the young woman "photographed and also made friends with the great stars of music, cinema, fashion and celebrities of the time". Although her work was by no means just a portrait of the frivolity of the 60s, "because Joana went down to the uranium mines and uncovered controversial cases such as the sexual abuse at the San Fernando boarding school. Her work is a reflection of the world in almost all its aspects", explains his biographer.
Biarnés, who reigned in a world of men, also went through some difficult moments such as when he accompanied Raphael on tour. The singer and the photographer passed through Anastasio Somoza's Nicaragua "and had to leave quickly." The dictator invited them to a party "where he messed with Biarnés, touched his ass. So Raphael told him 'don't leave me' and the next morning they both left the country."
The bad drink did not end the travel desires of the photographer who, after leaving the Pueblo newspaper, set up a photography agency and "went to Mexico to work on film shoots." That, and a contact of hers at Warner, took her to Hollywood where she covered the Oscars galas and received "a kiss on the lips from Clint Eastwood" as a gift. "She had told her contact that she had a crush on the actor and there was a tip-off, because when Clint saw her she walked over and without hesitation, he kissed her."
Eastwood's anecdote dwarfs that of the Beatles, who landed in Spain on July 1, 1965. The photographer went to the airport, which was abuzz with fans, and took her photos, "but she knew right away that they weren't the final ones so she pretty much got a ticket for her flight and got on the plane where she also took a bunch of snapshots and again she found out they weren't the final ones so she found out which hotel they were staying at, She slipped in, put her in the elevator, went up and knocked on the door of the room. Ringo opened it, who was amused by her perseverance, and let her in. There she did take the final photographs."
It will not be easy is full of anecdotes starring Biarnés, who died in 2018, who portrayed Audrey Herpburn at Lola Flores' house, Salvador Dalí, Miguel Bosé, Amanda Lear and Luis Miguel Dominguín in Portlligat, Ava Gardner in the bullfights and accompanied Massiel to Eurovision. Despite her successful career, Biarnés did not end her working life as a photographer: "When she got tired, she hung up the cameras and set up a restaurant in Ibiza, Ca Na Joana, which, as was to be expected, became the home of world stars and celebrities. whole".
