Jaume Jorba Aulés is a Sunday photographer, a lifelong amateur -he worked as a salesperson in a photographic material company until his retirement- who, at 91, is living a second life as an instagramer (j.jorles). On an almost daily basis, he uploads full-color images of his mobile escapades, interspersing from time to time some of the thousands upon thousands of black-and-white photos he's taken since his father put a plastic camera in his hands. hands at 15 years old. “I started going with him to the Agrupació Fotogràfica de Catalunya (AFC). He was just a kid, I would sit and listen to the conversations of those fans, ”he recalls. This is how his was also born, and already as a partner, with a card since 1949, in the talks and the excursions in partnership he found the bases for an apprenticeship that won him numerous awards.
Jaume Jorba Aulés is the oldest member of the AFP, and at the entrance to its headquarters on Carrer del Duc hangs one of his iconic photos, The gang, taken in 1962 at the Fossar de les Moreres. “Some children saw me with the camera and asked me to take a picture of them. I asked them to come up to a car and by themselves, in a matter of seconds, they made a wonderful composition. "Jorba is our oldest partner, but there are others who are older than him," says Pere Puigdollers, a retired industrial engineer and current president of an entity where these days there is an atmosphere of celebration.
Because this 2023 marks one hundred years since two Barcelonans, Joan Rocavert and Salvador Lluch, partners 1 and 2, after attending a variety show at the Paral·lel in Barcelona, decided to go to the exit together to reveal the photos . After discussing how one and the other did it, they had the idea of creating the association. First they settled in a room in a bar on Carrer Aribau, then in a flat on Carrer del Duc, which in its best days grew threefold. “In the sixties and seventies, 1,600 members were reached; today there are 240 of us, whose average age is around 70 years”, says Puigdollers. “I always say that the ideal age to enter is the day you retire, because the retiree has five days for himself and two for the family. When more young people enter, as now, problems of incompatibilities arise ”.
For years the AFC was the only training space in Barcelona and Otto Lloyd, Agustí Centelles, Antoni Campañà, Xavier Miserach, Ricard Terré, Eugeni Forcano, Joan Colom, Francesc Català-Roca, Ramon Masats passed through here... "A la people like to remember those numbers, but before they were great professionals, they were simple amateurs", points out the president. The majority, still today authentic unknowns, but whose work, in many cases admirable, can be discovered in the commemorative book Agrupació Fotogràfica de Catalunya 1923-2023 (Ambit). The author of the text is the historian Victoria Bonet Carbonell, who has also curated Enfocades!, an exhibition at Casa Elizalde (until the 15th) that focuses on the women of the AFC.
"The association never objected to having women, but I'm afraid life did," reflects Puigdollers, who says that the first member, Mercè Villamur, joined in 1923, but her determination did not last long. “This was a very masculine world and even when, from the mid-fifties, there was a significant female presence, they waited for each other downstairs to go up together.” They yelled at Carme Garcia Padrosa "go home to wash dishes at home" when she was walking with her Kodak...
Also members were Montserrat Gili, Montserrat Vidal-Barraquer, Glòria Salas, Roser Oromí, Rosa Szücs, Mey Rahola (to whom the MNAC dedicates an exhibition) or Milagros Caturla, of whom we would know nothing if it were not for an American tourist, Tom Sponheim , who after revealing some negatives that he had bought blindly at the Encants, paid for a campaign on Facebook to find the author or author of those wonderful shots. The story aroused the curiosity of a journalist, Carles Cols, and a spontaneous researcher, Begoña Fernández, who sensed that it was a woman and finally found the clue in the leather-bound bulletins kept in the entity's Library. .
Sponheim ended up donating them to the AFC. "I don't have children and I'm afraid this will be lost, if you don't mind..." "We will make an effort", was the response of Puigdollers, who put the number of photographs donated by members at more than 230,000, some of which are deposited in the MNAC or the AFB, which in June will host the central sample of the centenary.
