During his clandestine journeys through the streets of the working class neighborhoods in central Barcelona, equipped with a Leica camera that was hidden in his hand and which he usually triggered from below his waist without looking through the viewfinder, Joan Colom encountered all sorts of people and situations and, inevitably, prostitution.

His photographs focused on the interest generated by the presence of the prostitutes’ bodies in the street and, above all else, on the attraction they commanded from their surroundings. Evoking intimacy in the public space and defying the moral order imposed by the political regime, these images by Colom complement his vision on the life of a neighborhood that was defined by its marginality and resistance.

In 1964 Lumen published the book Izas, rabizas y colipoterras which included texts by Camilo José Cela and a selection of photographs by Colom. Nevertheless, the success of the volume resulted in Colom abandoning photography due to a lawsuit brought against him by one of the women who appeared in the photographs. A reflection on the manner in which photography appropriates and represents reality, this incident drove the photographer away from the practice until the 1990s.