site.btaDebut Exhibition by Antonio Ros Calabia to Be Unveiled in Sofia on World Photography Day

The debut exhibition of Spanish photographer Antonio Ros Calabia, The Good Righteous Path, will be unveiled on August 19, World Photography Day, at the BECA Before Creating Academy (Center of Visual Storytelling) photography gallery in Sofia, the organizers said.

In 2024, Ros Calabia was awarded the BECA International Scholarship during the prestigious Photography and Photojournalism Seminar in Albarracin, Spain, organized by Gervasio Sánchez, Sandra Balsells, and the Santa Maria de Albarracin Foundation. The Good Righteous Path is the result of a year-long creative process under the mentorship of Dimitri Stefanov and will be presented for the first time in Sofia.

“For 23 years, the renowned seminar has brought together world-famous authors, students, and photography enthusiasts. In its latest edition, for the first time, the grand prize from Fujifilm Espana and the BECA International Scholarship were awarded, marking a new chapter in its history. For two consecutive years, Bulgarian students from BECA Before Creating Academy have received Spanish scholarships from the seminar, gaining the opportunity to present their projects to a wide audience. The first scholarship holder, 18-year-old Alexander Aleksov, presented a new project on Generation Z to the Spanish photographic community. A year later, talented photographer Natalia Georgieva was also awarded, while several other Academy students were finalists among more than 160 participants,” the organizers said.

The exhibition is part of the gallery’s long-term initiative to support the development of emerging talent and marks an important step in the Academy’s growth as a platform actively contributing to international cultural exchange. The project is implemented with the financial support of the BECA Foundation, under the patronage of the Embassy of the Kingdom of Spain and the Cervantes Institute in Bulgaria.

The Project

The Good Righteous Path is a photographic narrative about a past that still resonates across the landscapes of contemporary Spain. Through a contemplative lens, Ros Calabia traces the elusive connections between the road, faith, and death, mapping the coordinates of a vanished moral order.

From this terrain, symbols emerge that form a quiet, almost invisible layer of reality, where time does not pass but settles. “The road there is not a direction but a trace – a fragment of a shell from a country that, in the mid-20th century, once again reinvented itself, melting its roots into the rhythm of the modern city and leaving behind a confused national identity. This identity is absent from museums and history books, yet it can be found in the ditches of forgotten villages, where nothing belongs to anyone anymore,” the organizers further explained.

In this world, on the border between the sacred and the lost, the project reveals a subtle sense of belonging. “There is no nostalgia here, but there is truth. A truth that seeks neither comfort nor restoration, but simply insists on being seen as it is - raw, barren, and profoundly human,” they added.

About the Author

Antonio Ros Calabia is a Spanish photographer and graphic designer. He graduated in Product Design in 2010 and, since 2012, has worked as a creative director for a video game development company. His interest in photography emerged during his university studies, when he gained basic knowledge of visual communication. He began photographing as an amateur and soon had the opportunity to present his series La Memoria del Agua, documenting art installations along the River Ebro for Expo Zaragoza 2008, at the invitation of the Municipality of Utebo.

In 2020, he decided to deepen his expertise in visual storytelling and enrolled in the photography programme at Spectrum Sotos School in Zaragoza, completing several courses and workshops. In 2023, he began work on The Good Righteous Path as part of a documentary photography course at the Centro de la Imagen. In October 2024, the project won the BECA International Scholarship at the Albarracin Photography and Photojournalism Seminar.