El Cauldillo

[Granddad]

This one just posted for interest. It's one of my wife's slides from her "Europe on a Dollar a Day" tour in 1972/1973. I'm in the process of converting all our old slides (95% hers) to digital by the project and photograph method ('cos it costs nothing but time). ... and Yes, I DO have her permission to share the image.

She was 21, while visiting Madrid she started seeing police and soldiers all over the place and crowds gathering so she asked what was going on; she was told that there was a big parade about to take place.
Being American she anticipated clowns and decorated floats so she and her buddy found a good spot on the route and waited. When the parade started she found that there were tanks and rocket launchers instead of floats, lots of soldiers in trucks and cavalry in ceremonial uniforms instead of clowns... the full military might of Falangist (Fascist) Spain was on display. Part way through, an open limousine rolled past with a couple of brass hats standing in the back seat and everyone waving and cheering. She snapped a shot. When she asked who the guy was she was told that it was El Cauldillo (the Leader) aka Generalissimo Francisco Paulino Hermenegildo Teódulo Franco Bahamonde, or more simply, General Franco. The last Fascist dictator in Europe. He's the shorter chap in the back of the Limo, the one wearing a red sash. He died a year or two later and Spain returned to being a constitutional monarchy, as it is today.

I think she was shooting with an old Vivitar, she wasn't much of a hand at focusing or getting the settings right but focus was OK on this one and Lightroom helped with the light and WB. FYI the faint vertical lines are from the projector screen (I later switched to projecting onto a piece of A2 card).

 

[tirediron]

Very cool!

 

[mgblunt]

Nice thanks for the background info very interesting.