Francesc Català Roca

The photograph on the cover of the Eland edition of Voices of the Old Sea is arresting.

It is by one of the most distinguished Spanish photographers of the last century, Francesc Català Roca. He was born in Catalonia in 1922 and, though he worked a lot in Barcelona, was prolific. He has been described as a master of Catalan documentary photography. He snapped Salvador Dali and Marcel Duchamp but that distracts from the main body of his work.

In fact the picture above is not typical either – his forte is photographing streets and street scenes in Barcelona and to a lesser extent Madrid. His pictures were appropriately used to illustrate a special edition of The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón.