Two days before Christmas the salon was busy with its regulars preparing for the big day. Talk of Christmas dinner and grandchildren mixed with the hot air and steam.

Salon Stories was recently featured in Italian photography magazine The Art Libido

Foveon X3 Sensor | Sigma SD15

Major Percy Horace Gordon Powell-Cotton, was an explorer, hunter and early conservationist. Between 1896 - 1939 he amassed an extraordinary collection of animals, brought back from his travels, potentially creating the largest collection of game ever shot by one man. Powell Cotton was a pioneer in the use of dioramas to display mounted mammals. At the Powell Cotton museum, his extensive collection of some of the world earliest diorama taxidermy are housed, along with many artefacts representing the cultures and traditions of the locations Major Powell-Cotton visited during his lifetime.

Kodak Portra 400 | Hasselblad 500c/m

The Pavelló alemany in Barcelona is a must stop location for photographers. Like many thousands of visitors, I was deeply impressed by its beautiful simplicity, with its seamless merging of external and internal spaces the entire building is a free-flowing work of elegance and order. The use of green marble, onyx and other natural materials mixed with steel and glass are reflected extensively by the two shallow pools that work like mirrors creating multiple views. In one corner stands the contrastingly elegant sculpture of Alba, her form and curves only serve to emphasise the ordered lines and simplicity of this stunning building.

Built for the Barcelona International Exposition of 1928 and designed by German architect Mies van der Rohe it was meant as a demonstration of "the clarity, simplicity and honesty" of Germany at that time. In 1930 once the exposition was over the building was disassembled. By the end of the 1950's Mies van der Rohe was considered internationally as a pioneering master of modern architecture and Pavelló alemany a key piece for the understanding of the modern movement. A project for the reconstruction of the pavilion was proposed and in 1986 a full reproduction was once again built in its original location of 1928.

All photographed with Contax S2 & Carl Zeiss Distagon T* ƒ2.8 28mm lens on Fuji Neopan 400 and Kodak Portra 400

Geoff has been collecting and selling vinyl records for 50 years, even now at 75 he enthuses about what a fantastic working life he has had. 'It's not really work that I do' he said to me when I asked if he would ever retire.

He happily showed me some of his rarest and most valuable collectables. Here he is holding one of only 5000 original copies of Unfinished Music number 1: Two Virgins by John Lennon and Yoko Ono worth over £3000. Directly below is an original pressing of Please Please Me, The Beatles debut album from 1963. 'It's in perfect condition, one recently sold for $22,000 in America' he showed me; reading from a copy of The Record Collector magazine.

Foveon X3 Sensor | Sigma SD14