Only a few months after finishing the first expedition, Ruth comes back to continue the collection of material about Galicia and she also adds León. She is accompanied by Frances Spalding, a colleague from the Hispanic. It will be seven months of work, between December 1925 and May 1926. She was even more strict with Frances than she had been with her father: one day when she is not feeling well, Ruth tells her in a firm tone, ‘first we will get this shot and then you can be sick’. In A Coruña, they rent a car and name it ‘Our Lady’. At the rear of the car, they order the installation of a trunk for their belongings that Ruth names Aaron, which serves as an improvised seat for hitchhikers. They gain independence and reach places they could not on the previous trip. Nor will they have to hire women to carry the heavy luggage again, a practice she had resorted to a lot with Alfred.
Now that there is no man next to her, the newspaper ‘El Compostelano’ says that they are highly cultured, but
‘In Spain, where the celibate woman, the young lady, whatever her age is, needs to validate her personality in public, with the company of relatives, governesses or domestic servants, the fine display of individual autonomy of these two foreign ladies, who, with their own car and with no other company than a beautiful camera, cross the towns and villages of Galicia seems rather senseless (…).’
The newspaper ‘Faro de Vigo’ chooses a different approach and say that
‘We have conversed at length with them and the impression they have given us is that the American woman unites her culture with an exquisite femininity and not the manly type which is misleadingly conveyed by many magazines and newspapers, but that the conditions of educational equality which both sexes receive, give them the ease and poise which we believe is inherent in the foreigner and is solely and exclusively a result of schooling.’
Ruth and Frances come to Compostela three times, mainly due to a specific order from the Hispanic Society: to register the opening of the Holy Door, as 1926 is a Holy Year. But on December 31, it rains so much that they doubt there will be a procession. For good measure, they pay the carpenters to photograph the Holy Door while they are preparing the electrical decorations. The canon promises them permission to access the balustrade above the door, where relatives from the archbishop’s house will be. However, at the time of the procession, it is still raining and there is no one on the balustrade. They then meet Narciso Correal, a writer they had met in A Coruña. Thanks to him, they come into the cathedral and get the best place, between the choir and the main chapel, while
‘the whole world gazing at fat Mr. Correal touring two forasteras, laden with leviathan (the reflex camera) and his impedimenta.’
It’s true, Leviathan is also the name given to one of their cameras, due to its enormous weight. Being in a good position, they see the procession leave and manage to get out through the crowd, despite the six kilos of Leviathan, and they hide to the right of the Door, between nuns and policemen until they hear a bang and stones falling. They leave the shelter and photograph what the rest of the public cannot see: the archbishop crossing through the Holy Door. Despite the lens bought for the occasion, the end result
‘is only a very spiritualized rendering for one archbishop, one cross, and five priests still more ethereal.’
We already know how self-demanding Ruth is, but in this case, the inclement weather doesn’t help and she is content to note that the next day was ‘brilliantly beautiful‘.
On the expedition with her father, she constantly returned to the cathedral, which she compares to an immense hive. She will take multiple photographs of the interior, such as the one of a woman praying in front of the Mondragón chapel, or the one of a beam of light in the transept, demonstrating her mastery of the light, a technique learned at Clarence White’s school. Perhaps Ruth admired the new altarpiece in the chapel of the relics, a work by Maximino Magariños of Compostela, during one of her visits, and that is why she portrays his workshop at Porta da Pena.
Let’s go now to Pazo de Fonseca (Manor House).